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Implicit beliefs of disability and elite sport: the para-athlete experience

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-10-05, 10:28 authored by Nicholas P. De Cruz, Christopher SprayChristopher Spray, Brett M. Smith
The purpose of this study was to explore the implicit beliefs and underlying motivational processes of para-athletes, and how these beliefs influenced perceptions of sport performance, as well as challenge the dominant social stereotypes that misconstrue disability as inability. Utilising a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five elite para-athletes from various sporting backgrounds and analysed from a psychosocial perspective according to the procedures of theoretical thematic analysis. To invoke greater emotional tone and depth, participant-created visual data were used to supplement the initial thematic analysis. Three themes associated with the implicit beliefs of para-athletes were identified and termed, (1) on being disabled, (2) achieving is believing and (3) accepting differences or being indifferent. These themes illustrated how participants had to accept the ‘fixed’ nature of their disability first, before they could work towards overcoming its limitations. Through continuously adapting and adjusting their strategies to address setbacks as they occurred, the process of accepting limitations and overcoming setbacks led to increased feelings of self-efficacy and competence, which consequently led to the dominant incremental beliefs participants held.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

Volume

11

Issue

1

Pages

69-91

Citation

DE CRUZ, N.P., SPRAY, C.M and SMITH, B.M., 2017. Implicit beliefs of disability and elite sport: the para-athlete experience. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11 (1), pp.69-91.

Publisher

© Taylor & Francis

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-09-22

Publication date

2017-09-29

Notes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health on 29 September 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/2159676X.2017.1384753.

ISSN

2159-676X

eISSN

2159-6778

Language

  • en