IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rfa/journl/v3y2015i4p56-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Importance of Touch in Sport: Athletes¡¯ and Coaches¡¯ Reflections

Author

Listed:
  • Gretchen A. Kerr
  • Ashley E. Stirling
  • Amanda L. Heron
  • Ellen A. MacPherson
  • Jenessa M. Banwell

Abstract

This study examined athletes¡¯ and coaches¡¯ experiences of positive touch within the coach-athlete relationship, including examples of positive touch, reasons for the use of touch, and factors affecting athletes¡¯ acceptance of touch. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 coaches and 10 athletes from various sports. Data were coded using inductive and deductive coding techniques. All participants shared examples of positive touch in sport including: hugs, high fives, physical manipulation of the body, pats on the back, hand shaking, and spotting. Positive touch was reportedly used for affective, behavioural, safety, and cultural reasons. Touch was viewed by these athletes and coaches as being important and even necessary in the sport environment and within the coach-athlete relationship provided that it was individualized and contextualized. The findings are interpreted to suggest that the recent trend to avoid touch in child-populated domains ignores the many benefits of touch for health, instruction, and development.

Suggested Citation

  • Gretchen A. Kerr & Ashley E. Stirling & Amanda L. Heron & Ellen A. MacPherson & Jenessa M. Banwell, 2015. "The Importance of Touch in Sport: Athletes¡¯ and Coaches¡¯ Reflections," International Journal of Social Science Studies, Redfame publishing, vol. 3(4), pages 56-68, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:rfa:journl:v:3:y:2015:i:4:p:56-68
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/ijsss/article/view/803/861
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/ijsss/article/view/803
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Çetin, Erdal & Hacısoftaoğlu, Ilknur, 2020. "Factors facilitating child abuse in sports in Turkey: The case of elite athletes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coaching; athlete welfare; athlete-coach relationship; positive touch;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rfa:journl:v:3:y:2015:i:4:p:56-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Redfame publishing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.