Talent identification and development in high-speed locomotor sports: a multidisciplinary perspective

Project ID: 1785918

Developing young athletes is a costly and large-scale process which requires scientific support to drive evidence-based coaching programmes. This project will be novel in its approach and insights by focusing on girls, talent development, and multidisciplinary developmental factors, along with contributing to the small body of research on female athletes in not only high-speed locomotor sports, but across the talent development landscape. For context and clarity, we consider high-speed locomotor sports to be those where the athlete is required to control a vehicle while navigating a course at high-speed.

Previous research is currently limited by typically taking the findings from male athlete studies and applying them to the female environment without consideration for any differences (see Curran et al., 2019). To date, most research has focused on male talent development environments and there are clearly issues when such data informs the practice and policy for female athletes. Our proposed series of studies is centred on female sport, dedicated to understanding female experiences of talent development, which will also enable comparisons to ongoing research in female team sport talent development programmes, and providing a blueprint for future research in other sports. This will make funding more economical and efficient as it will be deployed in an evidence-based manner, helping to promote better athlete lifestyle support, and consequently improve general health and wellbeing for female athletes within these programmes.

This fully funded PhD presents the opportunity to work with Motorsport UK (national governing body for four-wheel motorsport in the United Kingdom) and TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme), specifically supporting the F1® Academy Discover Your Drive initiative. One of the key intended outcomes of this project is to generate evidence and guidelines that fosters a positive experience within talent development programmes for female athletes, enabling movement between talent development programmes without fear of a poor experience, thus increasing the female talent pool in elite sport. Broadly, this project will help to create coherent and uniformed evidence-based guidelines across multiple sports by assessing the efficacy of the talent development climate in Discover Your Drive (and other high-speed locomotor sports).

We are interested in receiving 1500-word research proposals that reflect your scientific interest and academic skills in advancing this area within youth sport over the course of three to four studies. We are particularly interested in ideas regarding the measurement and tracking of talent development, specifically in Motorsport and other high-speed locomotor sports utilising Performance Analysis methodologies from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Supervisory Team:

Dr Nathan Cobb

Dr Chris Saward

Dr Noel Kinrade

References 

Curran, O., MacNamara, A., & Passmore, D. (2019). What about the girls? Exploring the gender data gap in talent development. Frontiers in sports and active living, 1, 3.

1st class/2:1 undergraduate degree in Sport and Exercise Science, Sport Performance Analysis, Sport Coaching or related discipline. Completed masters level qualification with a high merit or distinction profile/or evidence of substantive published research works in Sport and Exercise Science, Talent Development, Skill Acquisition, Performance Analysis or related discipline. Evidence of training and academic performance in quantitative and/or qualitative research methods at postgraduate level will be important.

This is a match-funded PhD, with external funding provided by TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme). The majority of data collection and collaboration will be with Motorsport UK.  If you are successful in your application, you'll receive an annual stipend of £18,622.