Talent development environments within sports: a scoping review examining functional and dysfunctional environmental features

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the work of Martindale, R. J., Collins, D., and Daubney, J. (2005, Talent development: A guide for practice and research within sport. Quest (Grand Rapids, Mich ), 57(4), 353–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2005.10491862) and Henriksen, K., Stambulova, N., and Roessler, K. K. (2010a, Holistic approach to athletic talent development environments: A successful sailing milieu. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11(3), 212–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.10.005), researchers have increasingly focused on environmental features influencing talent development in sport from an integrated, holistic perspective. These contributions led to a quickly evolving body of literature and a proliferation of findings related to facilitative and debilitative environmental features. With a timely appraisal of this work warranted, this review aims to coalesce salient results from talent development environment research. For this purpose, a holistic perspective is employed on (a) the environmental level, by considering the sport and non-sport domain and by identifying functional and dysfunctional features, as well as on (b) the outcome level, by considering wellbeing and personal development, alongside athletic development, as important athlete-related outcomes. Following a systematic search, 44 articles were identified and findings summarised by conducting a directed content analysis (Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687). Several functional and dysfunctional features were derived from the literature and grouped into the following main categories within a preliminary conceptual framework: Preconditions of the Sport Environment, Organisational Culture, Integration of Efforts, and Holistic Quality Preparation. The framework’s contribution to a more systemic and holistic approach to talent development is discussed and critical future research directions are proposed.