“This dissertation reflects a major contribution from an emerging researcher, hopefully with many more contributions ahead”

Joe Baker
School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University

In the various fields of athlete development, talent identification, skill acquisition and expertise, there are few topics as passionately argued as the costs and benefits of early specialization. In February 2022, Charlotte Downing defended her PhD dissertation, Early specialising aesthetic performers: An investigation of conceptualisation, motivation and context.

The highly engaging dissertation contains four empirical studies, two of which are already published in leading journals, one is currently under review and one is not yet submitted. These four studies are supported by a thorough summary of important background information and critical theories, especially the Self-Determination Theory of motivation. What makes this dissertation so interesting is that it focuses on the issue of early specialization in aesthetic sports, a context where this issue has particular relevance due to early age of peak performance and established sport and cultural traditions. Collectively, the document provides an excellent general discussion of the findings of this research program as well as its implications and limitations, all grounded in current understanding of this evolving field of work.

After a thorough literature review that situates the subsequent chapters within the broader context of athlete development, early specialization and aesthetic sports, the first paper provides a synthesis of current knowledge. “A Systematic Review of Study Designs and Results Concerning Psychological Aspects of Early Specialisation” is currently under review for publication and extends several recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses in this area, but focuses on psychological outcomes (e.g., dropout, burnout, motivation) related to early specialization. This is the least explored topic amongst researchers in this area, but arguably one of the most important, at least as emphasized in position statements on the risks of early specialization.

Ultimately, the review serves as a ‘call to action’ for further research and fits within a broader narrative that is emerging in this field, challenging the simplicity of the ‘early specialization is bad’ conclusion.

The review focused on 21 different studies identified through 3 research databases. Surprisingly, results indicated the evidence in this area is quite weak despite the strength of the rhetoric by many researchers in this field. Ultimately, the review serves as a ‘call to action’ for further research and fits within a broader narrative that is emerging in this field, challenging the simplicity of the ‘early specialization is bad’ conclusion.

After clarifying the problem in Study 1, Paper 2 attempts to create a superior approach to assessing specialization and specialization-related risk in developing youth performers from sports and dance disciplines that have an early sport focus. This article, “An Index Approach to Early Specialization Measurement: An Exploratory Study”, was published as a Brief Research Report in Frontiers in Psychology in 2020. Although relatively new, the paper has already been viewed over 5,500 times and cited 6 times.

This paper focuses on the use of an indexing approach to calculate an athlete’s degree of specialization relative to 4 factors: intensity of engagement, whether the training was done ‘year-round’, whether the athlete focused on a single sport and whether the athlete specialized early. Most previous work has simply focused on “how many sports did the athlete do?”. This is an improvement on previous approaches since it captures key elements of what could make specialization ‘risky’ (e.g., load is too high for too long and/or too specific for athletes at early stages of development). The long-term value of this indexing approach is yet to be determined, and there are certainly some concerns with this preliminary scale (e.g., all items are weighted similarly which may mask differences between elements of specialization and their impacts at different stages of development), but there is interesting potential here.’

Paper 3, “Early specialisation among Swedish aesthetic performers: Exploring motivation and perceptions of parental influence” was published in the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology in 2022 and has already been cited 3 times and viewed over 2000 times. This study had an impressive sample of 290 performers in aesthetic sports (mostly gymnasts, dancers, and figure skaters) and focused on the relationship between specialization status and elements of self-determined motivation. It also examined whether these relationships were moderated by parental influences. Participants completed the index measure developed in Study 2 to capture degrees of specialization. Some small but significant effects but not evidence of moderation or large predictive effects of the specialization index on motivational outcomes. These results contradict much of the rhetoric about specialization’s impact on psychological indicators such as motivation. One of my favourite sentences in the dissertation is found in this study and does a strong job of capturing the issue at the heart of this whole field of work:

If early specialisation does continue to happen within aesthetic activities, we need to build a solid foundation of empirical evidence to help us decide whether to work with (i.e., exploring ways to minimise risks and enhance potential benefits) or against (i.e., suggest workable alternatives) this tradition.

The final paper, “Athlete reflections on early specialisation: A self-determination theory perspective” (not yet published), uses an interview-based approach to examine motivation in 10 early specialized athletes from gymnastics and figure skating. All participants identified as early specializers in their sport and were currently competing at the national or international level. Participants completed an interview about their early training experiences, with a particular focus on motivation during this time. Results emphasized the important role of parents in promoting playful and enjoyable early experiences. The results also highlighted the evolution of intrinsic and autonomous motivation during this early period. Importantly, the results from Study 4 stress the inter-relationship between early play-like experiences and the transition to more serious, deliberate training – particularly for supplemental forms of training, which were seen as not as enjoyable.

The research program is unique in that it identifies and highlights an important gap in understanding (Study 1), develops a new approach/tool to be used in filling this gap (Study 2), and then takes steps to make it happen (Studies 3 and 4). Although not explicitly following this approach, it fits nicely with a ‘research to action’ framework. Moreover, the skills developed for, and used in, this research program span from research synthesis activities to various forms of quantitative approaches (instrument design and hierarchical multiple regression) to qualitative approaches.  Although there are issues and limitations with some of the approaches used in this research, Dr. Downing seems well aware of the boundaries of her work. Collectively, the dissertation reflects a major contribution from an emerging researcher, hopefully with many more contributions ahead.

Copyright © Joe Baker 2023