Participant Experience of a Modified Sports Program—A Curriculum Investigation in Gaelic Games
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Modification and Scaling in Youth Sport
1.2. Competition in Youth Sport—Moving beyond Equipment and Dimensions
1.3. Curriculum
1.4. Go Games: An Example of a Modified Sports Program
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Design and Methodology
2.2. Participants
2.2.1. Players
2.2.2. Parents
2.2.3. Coaches
2.3. Data Collection
2.4. Data Analysis
2.4.1. The Deductive Phase
2.4.2. The Inductive Phase
3. Results
3.1. Buy-In to the Go Games Curriculum
3.1.1. Equal Participation
3.1.2. Emphasis on Enjoyment
3.1.3. Skill Development
3.1.4. De-Emphasising Scores and Winning
3.2. Coaches’ Experience Enacting the Go Games Curriculum
3.2.1. Ensuring Enjoyment among Players
3.2.2. Balancing Equal Participation and Competitiveness
3.2.3. Navigating Scores and Winning
3.2.4. Procedural Challenges and Consistency
3.3. Players’ and Parents’ Experience of the Go Games Curriculum
3.3.1. Players Enjoy the Go Games
3.3.2. Competition and Competitiveness
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Intended Curriculum | Enacted Curriculum | Experienced Curriculum |
---|---|---|
“I think most people would be of the opinion that it’s not just about the best players being on the pitch, it’s about everybody being on”. (Coach 21) | “The reality is you might have three or four very strong players and they can dominate very easily. So that’s a bit of a challenge in that to get the other kids involved”. (Coach 14) | “He sees that he’s improving, that he’s getting better and so he likes it, and he always wants to come back”. (Parent 31) |
Meaning Unit | Code | Sub-Theme | Theme |
---|---|---|---|
“I’m in favour of the Go Games, I think, it’s a good model. I think the best part of it is they aren’t tracking the scores”. (Coach 2) | Keeping Score | De-emphasising Scores and Winning | Buy-in to the Go Games Curriculum |
“I think the streaming worked and the reason why it worked is it gives every player, regardless of skillset and opportunity to play and be involved in the game”. (Parent 48) | Streaming | Balancing Equal Participation and Competitiveness | Coaches’ Experience Enacting the Go Games Curriculum |
“Meeting new people and I get to play with my friends”. (Player 82) | Enjoyment of Social Interaction | Players Enjoy the Go Games | Player and Parent Experience of the Go Games Curriculum |
Theme | Sub-Theme | Raw Data Exemplars |
---|---|---|
Buy-in to the Go Games Curriculum | Equal Participation | “Everybody playing is the most important thing for us, getting them game time. So, adjusting the size of the teams and the pitches and accommodating, making sure we get them game time is important”. (Coach 8) “The inclusion of everyone is a major thing. They all get game time and get out in the pitch. It’s important to them”. (Parent 23) |
Emphasis on Enjoyment | “All you want them to do is all play and enjoy it”. (Coach 12) “The primary reason to play it should be about enjoyment and walking away with positive attitude”. (Parent 5) | |
Skill Development | “It’s more focused on the skills. We’re asking someone to do a jab lift or asking them to kick the ball. It’s all based on skill development”. (Coach 19) “They do the training, they practice with the friends. They’re trying to get better, and then when they go out on the field and they can do the things well that they’ve practiced, and then they just feel like they’ve mastered something”. (Parent 56) | |
De-emphasising Scores and Winning | “I feel that the Go Games is worth defending definitely. And the philosophy around not keeping score is really important”. (Coach 14) “I just think the fact that there’s no one really keeping a score or such that they can relax into it and just enjoy it and they’re not under pressure to win all the time”. (Parent 9) | |
Coaches’ Experience Enacting the Go Games Curriculum | Ensuring Enjoyment Among Players | “They enjoy playing for their club, they enjoy playing with their friends, they enjoy competing with other players, even if there’s no scoreboard as such. They really get a lot out of putting a jersey on and going off to play another club”. (Coach 26) |
Balancing Equal Participation and Competitiveness | “We’ve been involved in very one-sided matches sometimes when we’ve been on top, but we’ve made sure we’re not going to totally maul the opposition, because we’d be conscious that has happened to us and it’s not nice”. (Coach 17) | |
Navigating Scores and Winning | “So I focus less on winning and the competition level. The focus isn’t on that, which is good, even though the girls probably know whether they have won or lost”. (Coach 6) | |
Procedural Challenges and Consistency | “So at the younger age you might have parents being a bit more vocal towards referee for example”. (Coach 22) | |
Player and Parent Experience of the Go Games Curriculum | Players Enjoy the Go Games | “He does like the competitive side of it, but he does like the social end of it as well because he’s hanging around with boys from school and he’s got to make new friends”. (Parent 34) “I scored. I kind of like it when I score and I did like that we did get a few scores. At least we scored two or three points”. (Player 28) |
Competition and Competitiveness | “The kids keep score. And they have done since they were, I’d say six or seven”. (Parent 44) “You can see different standards and different teams, but I suppose there’s games where they’re probably more evenly matched and you can see that there is a proper element of competition in it”. (Parent 16) “We weren’t told the score, but I know the winning score. The score was five points to two”. (Player 16) “Every time one person went in for the ball, they just went back to the team, was like keep going back and forward. And then goal after goal after goal.” (Player 87) |
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Gavin, K.; Taylor, J.; Behan, S.; Horgan, P.; MacNamara, Á. Participant Experience of a Modified Sports Program—A Curriculum Investigation in Gaelic Games. Youth 2024, 4, 15-30. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4010002
Gavin K, Taylor J, Behan S, Horgan P, MacNamara Á. Participant Experience of a Modified Sports Program—A Curriculum Investigation in Gaelic Games. Youth. 2024; 4(1):15-30. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4010002
Chicago/Turabian StyleGavin, Kevin, Jamie Taylor, Stephen Behan, Peter Horgan, and Áine MacNamara. 2024. "Participant Experience of a Modified Sports Program—A Curriculum Investigation in Gaelic Games" Youth 4, no. 1: 15-30. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4010002