Fun Integration Theory
This the the name given to a study by its author, Dr Amanda Visek in 2017.
She was tasked, from a health perspective, to find out how to keep people in sport for as long as possible. She looked at the current research and found that for decades people had been asked why they dropped out and the No 1 answer was "it stopped being fun." this did not change over time, gender, age or any other factor. Obviously its not the only reason but it is consistently top of the list.
So she decided to be the first person to ask young people what they meant by 'Fun'. Her results blow the lid of what we thought we knew. She asked 150 football (soccer) players 8-18, 50 coaches and 50 parents (approx figures) to complete the following statement;
"One thing that makes playing sport fun for players is..."
After similar statements had been collapsed the researchers were left with 81 individual statements of what makes sport fun including ones like
"Trying your best"
and
"Getting pictures taken"
The researchers then asked the players, coaches and parents to take all 81 statements and give them a value from 1-5 of how vital they were for fun. All statements could be a 5, all could be a 1, each statement was ranked individually.
Once all statements had been ranked by all persons they were then grouped into 11 categories with the following headings
- Trying Hard
- Being a good sport
- Positive Coaching
- Learning and improving
- Game time support
- Games
- Practice
- Team friendships
- mental bonuses
- Team rituals
- SWAG
The above list is in the order that players statement values put them!
Dr Visek tells us that this priority list does not budge for age, competition level, gender or any other factor for the players, i.e. I can be a college scholarship player or an 8y old social player my fun values will not vary. Obviously there are individual differences, but the averages don't shift. What does shift are coaches values. Up to about 14 the coaches are aligned to the players values. From this point on coaches values shift dramatically away from the players. Is it any wonder it stopped being fun?
It is important to stress here that even though the coaches have decided that sport gets 'real' around 14 and shift their values accordingly the players don't. Not even the ones who are on the 'real' teams! They are working as hard and taking it as seriously as they are asked, but the still prioritise the same things they did as when they were 8.
Secondly, my question is what do I as a coach plan for?
I spend nearly all my time focused on 5 and 6. I know the rest matter because when I think about horror sessions it is these things that come up as key factors. But what would happen if I spent my time actively planning for factors 1-4.
If I take the top ten individual statements from all 81 and produced as session to match it would have the following elements
- Players would try their best
- The coach would show the players respect
- Players would play well together as a team
- Everyone would get equal playing time
- All team mates would get along
- Everyone would feel they had exercised and been active
- Everyone would work hard
- The coach would encourage the team
- The coach would be a positive role model
- Players would feel they had played well during the game
That sounds like any coaches dream session. But here is where it gets dirty. How do I PLAN for players to try their best, or for me to demonstrate my respect for the players? Not hope they happen because I am so good at my job and such a great bloke. Which lets face it is how most of us go about achieving that list.
Well done Dr Visek and team, you have shook my world!
Check out the actual paper here