Confidence-sourcing among amateur soccer players: interpreting time, place and stimulus-relevance

Although confidence is one of the major contemporary concerns in the psychology of sporting performance, extant study has primarily been concerned with elite and/or individual sports, and a deductive framework has been dominant. Drawing upon the core techniques of Straussian Grounded Theory, the research reported in this paper inductively analyses detailed accounts of confidence-sourcing provided by N=14 seasoned participants in amateur soccer. Results reveal a number of (sometimes eclectic) features of the ways that these individuals interpret and organise their own confidence sources, not least those relating to highly variable temporal and socio-spatial frames within which a potential confidence source might be considered “relevant” or “useful.” These findings contrast significantly with others emanating from research in the elite domain and, it is contended, have direct practical implications for both physical educators and grassroots sport coaches.