Dataset of Winning in the Long Run: Towards a Psychosocial Sustainability of Adolescent Dual Careers

Abstract

With the aim to investigate psychological resilience factors and vulnerabilities of a dual career construction in late adolescence and how they impact the life course, we have collected longitudinal mixed methods data from 391/453 student-athletes, aged 16/17 at the baseline (T1/T2) and enrolled in 6/7 elite sport upper secondary schools across Finland, their parents/guardians, and coaches. The current dataset consists of: (1) self-report questionnaires of student-athletes gathered 6 times (a) at the beginning of upper secondary school, (b) at the end of the first year, (c) at the end of the second school year, (d) at the beginning of the third school year, (e) at the end of the third school year, and (f) at the beginning of the fourth year; (2) life story interviews, including art-based, visual storytelling, with 18 talented and elite student-athletes at the matching time-points during the upper secondary; (3) self-report questionnaires of the participants’ parents/legal guardians at the beginning and the end of the upper secondary; (4) one-time, semi-structured interviews with 10 male, youth ice-hockey coaches from a club in Finland; (5) one-time, semi-structured interviews with 10 female and male cross-country ski coaches in Finland; and (6) one-time, semi-structured interviews with 15 female and male athletics (track-and-field) coaches from a club in Finland.

Student-athlete questionnaires were constructed to examine development of the participants’ motivation, identity, psychological well-being, future orientation and career adaptability resources in and across sport and school contexts. Parental questionnaires were constructed to examine, for example, the role of parenting styles, expectations, own education, athletic background and well-being in the outcome measures of adolescent participants. Life story interviews were designed to obtain a deeper understanding of how young people make sense of their life trajectories in particular socio-cultural contexts, marked by concrete events, relationships, and transitions. Coaches were interviewed to explore the discourses that underpin their coaching philosophy and views on holistic development (e.g., dual career, lifelong participation, life-skills) of gendered athletes and how the derived meanings shape their coaching practice. Data were collected in 2015-2018. Follow-up data on dual career status, athletic and academic achievements, employment, economic situation, dimensions of emerging adulthood (IDEA), mood states, motivation, identity, psychological well-being, career adaptability resources, and impact of COVID-19 on young people’s life course were collected in Autumn 2021, when they transitioned to early adulthood (n=238).