Gorrell, E. (2024). Athletes vs. coaches: Perspectives on social media. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Brock University.

​The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the different perceptions of social media in athletes and coaches. Previous research has not given a thorough examination of social media’s effects on coaches, or the consequences of social media for meaningful relations between coach and athlete. Previous literature suggests that not only do athletes not understand the influences or implications of social media, but also that these influences and implications could alter an athlete’s mentality for performance. Previous research also recognized that athletes’ preoccupation with social media is a perceived challenge for coaches. Goffman’s (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Sissela Bok’s (1978) Lying functioned as significant theoretical frameworks within this dissertation which was also guided by an existential phenomenological orientation to embodied experience. Methods used included 1) semi-structured interviews with 10 high-performance competitive athletes, from individual sports; 2) content analysis of 13 post submissions by athletes with an athlete reflection; and 3) semi-structured interviews with 6 high-performance competitive coaches. A phenomenological analysis sequence was applied to the data sets, which consisted of parsing the responses to the interview questions into units or phrases of meaning, maintaining horizontalization, and creating a rich description that represented the meanings discerned from the data analysis. Imaginative Free Variation (IFV), guided by the lifeworld existentials of Body, Space, Time and Relation (bstr), was also a strategy used to deepen the examination of themes and summary descriptions. A manifest and latent analysis was utilized on the posts (“phase 2”) to describe the post while suggesting a plausible interpretation that the athlete’s reflection could be compared against. The posts were also used within the coach interviews in order to gain the coaches’ perspectives of the selected posts. The study aimed to bridge the gap in understanding the relation between coaches and athletes and how the effects that social media has on athletes and their performance. The findings suggest that athletes are aware that people are viewing them, and that they are having a difficult time regulating information that they see on social media or how they are using social media. The findings from the “phase 2” analysis suggest that athletes believe that they have insider meaning that the average viewer does not when viewing certain social media posts. These findings also suggest that the coach-athlete relationship runs the risk of becoming less effective, because there is less value given to interactions within the physical environment.

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Gorrell, E. (2018). The impact of social media on athletes’ self-efficacy (Unpublished master’s thesis). Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.

The purpose of the study is to understand how social media affects athletes’ self-efficacy. With the ubiquitous presence of social media, it was hypothesized that via social media the source persuasion — one of the four sources that regulates self-efficacy — may be used as a way to encourage or discourage athletes in believing they have, or lack, the skills necessary to complete a task; therefore, persuading athletes to become more or less assured in their abilities despite past experiences. A phenomenological approach was utilized for this study to assist the researcher in conceptualizing ideas that might be dismissed by the boundaries of more traditional approaches. Semi-structured interviews were completed with 10 high-performance athletes in combative sports, and a cross- interview by-question analysis was performed on the data to determine the patterns and themes from the data. Results indicate that social media, and the way that athletes use social media, does have an effect on athletes’ self-efficacy, however the impact of self- efficacy depends on the social media usage.

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Immersive Experience -- Instagram @ElyseinJapan

July 8, 2019 - July 17, 2020

Participated in Tsukuba Summer Institute (TSI) for Physical Education and Sport. I am showcasing participating in another culture's sport program that has different philosophies, values and goals.

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