Good Draft Capstone Proposal

Name of student: __Violet McLean_____________________________ Date: _Feb. 28th, 2024_

Teacher: __Mr. Harvalias______________ Block: __C____________

The Capstone strand I have chosen is _______Occupational / Project_____________________

Proposed title for my Project Proposal: (write the proposed title for your Capstone Project in one clear
sentence): ___Bringing Awareness to Sport Psychology Through Coaching __________________

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that connects with
a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that you cannot just google an
answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.
My inquiry question is:

How can I inform athletes about the importance of sport psychology?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are choosing to
investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect to your passion(s),
purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

I want to investigate this topic because in my experience, mentality is the most important part of sports. I am
very passionate about volleyball and ever since I started playing I have been intrigued by the psychology
around athletic performance. Most athletes experience negative feelings or burnout in their sport, and I want
to know how I can help people develop a healthier mindset and better mental resilience. Personally, having
a growth mindset is something that I want to work on myself and through playing sports for the majority of
my life I have discovered the correlation between success and mental health. My takeaway from this is that
I want to be able to share this with other athletes and demonstrate the importance of being mentally strong
to people in sports.

Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this area of inquiry?

My club volleyball and school coaches are both very involved in their athletes’ mental wellbeing. Through
them, I have learned different ways to cope with stress, to learn from failure and how to become more
competitive with a positive mindset.

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Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What connections does this
inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

Right now, I want to study psychology in university but don’t know what I want to do as a job in the future. I
am very much a “why” person and want to know more about why people do what they do. My inquiry
question highlights my passion for volleyball, as being a competitive athlete has a whole separate part of
psychology attached to it. Since I am pursuing psychology, my inquiry question allows me to explore
connections to the psychology of sports. I think this will help me in the future if I ever decide to specialize in
a field and will help me gather insight on what I want my future career to look like.

Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core competencies will
be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

Strengths

1. Self-Regulation
 I take personal responsibility for my choices and actions.
 I can set goals, regulate my emotions and persevere in difficult situations.
 I understand learning takes patience and time.

I have always had a strong sense of responsibility and have learned how to be resilient, patient and strong
when it comes to making decisions. I believe that it is important to set achievable goals in life, so you feel
progress even when it comes to little things. In my Capstone, there were many times where as a team, we set
goals to achieve in games and tournaments to create a more competitive environment. When I am learning
how to do something, I recognize that it is important to be able to fully understand it before being “good” at
it. This will be useful in my capstone project as I can remind myself that progress takes time and that if I
want to achieve anything, it is my job to put in the effort.

2. Novelty and Value

 I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that influence how
people think about topics.

In my capstone project, I will create plans to help youth become more confident, resilient and mentally
strong. Being able to convey my ideas and provide a unique perspective on ideas will be an essential part of
my project, as people will need to be able to take away key points about what I am saying. I will need to do
the same, as I will be learning from others during this experience and will think about differing perspectives
in this project. I ended up developing these skills further and was able to give advice to players, which they
were able to use in a constructive and meaningful way.

3. Collaborate to plan, carry out and review

 I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems.

Working with others is a big part of my project, as I will be listening, watching and assisting coaches. I have
been working with people for years now in school, at work and in volleyball, and am excited to keep making
connections. This skill will play a key role in my individual progress, and communication will be important
between myself and players, myself and coaches and in my reflection.

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 Areas of Growth

1. Develop and Design

 I can explore and create new ways to represent my learning around a variety of problems,
events, issues and needs.
 I understand my purpose for my work and consider my audience.
 I can assess my progress.

A big part of my project involves adaptability and exploring different ways of thinking, which is something
that I have been trying to work on. I am an adaptable person, but I get stressed out thinking of different
situations and what could go wrong in my project. As someone who likes to think inside the box, trying to
think of different and unique ideas and ways to solve problems will be a challenge.

2. Personal Strength and Abilities

 I know my strengths and what makes me unique.
 I understand how to use my strengths and abilities to my advantage and I can explain how I
use them to contribute to my identity.

I feel like I will be able to find out more about myself, my passions and my future by doing this strand of
capstone. Exploring something that is interesting but out of my comfort zone will help me see what I am
capable of and will provide insight on what I can continue to grow in.

3. Connect and Engage with Others

 I can listen, learn to contribute meaningfully to discussion and debate, consider different
perspectives, and build consensus.

Once I am comfortable, I find it easy to contribute my perspective in conversations and am able to build
upon people’s opinions. At the beginning of my capstone, I know that I will have a difficult time adjusting
and expressing myself in a coaching situation, but this is just another area to grow in and reflect on at the
end of my project.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to present your
project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once completed. You may use a
combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o imovie presentation
o YouTube channel

I will log my hours along with progress, plans and information that I took away from each session in my
Notes app and on Microsoft Word. I will log what I learned, what I did, and reflect on how I applied it in
practices in posts on my website and write about what I took away from each session in a reflective style.

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Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what will you
research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced at the end of this
project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your proposal.

By shadowing youth volleyball coaches, I am investigating how mental strength and resilience can be
grown, and how these lessons can be implemented into practices. I learned fast that the coaches that I
was working with really prioritized mental skills, and even gave out mental skills strategies and journals at
the beginning of the season. For me, I will attend a number of youth volleyball practices and observe how
coaches teach skills, how they see failure and mistakes, as well as how mental strength is trained. I will
talk to players about how they see their mental strength and observe and give advice on how to construct
more resilience. I will record everything, including questions that I form and anything that I learn in my
Notes app. Each page of my journal will be uploaded as capstone evidence, and I will write a reflection
piece for each session. I will also make observations of how the kids play under pressure and how their
mistakes effect their confidence. Once I feel more confident in my knowledge of sport psychology, I want to
be able to provide my perspective and insight to my mentors in order to see if my observations can help
grow the athletes’ mental strength and how I can begin to introduce the resilience and psychology part into
training. I am going to talk to athletes about staying positive and reminding them of their mental skills. By
the end of my project, I will have written many reflections in my website with my learning, and I will be able
to reflect on how I learned more about sport psychology and how important it is to athletes. I want to have
made connections with the athletes I am helping and see if they have felt a real difference in their skill level
and mentality after my sessions with them. To do this, I will interview a player that I feel like has used the
mental skills training to the fullest and that I have seen a lot of growth in.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and skills you will
need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to access/learn all of the resources
necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail your plans.

- I need to learn to take more effective notes. I can practice different ways of taking notes like
having a digital journal, writing what my mentor says and writing / asking questions after each
session.
- Better my talking skills with younger people. In order to get better at talking with kids, I will get out
of my comfort zone and try to make connections with them through volleyball.
- I will need a way of transportation since my connections are in Burnaby / Surrey, so I can ask my
parents to drive me.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will you need to

help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you? What is your plan to access
the mentorship/community connections necessary for this project?

I have many connections to coaches that I would like to shadow. I want my mentors to be able show me
how they encourage mental toughness in their athletes as well as provide me with opportunity to
implement some of my own learning. In order to get experience with a coach, I will attend practices as
often as I can and gather information about how mental toughness is being exercised and what I can do
to improve it. After getting experience shadowing a coach (or multiple coaches), I want to create a plan to
eventually run a practice and coach people on the mental aspect of the game. The person I ended up

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 shadowing is actually a coach that teaches other coaches about mental skills and has many resources
that I was able to access.

Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee that might
affect progress with your Capstone Project?

- Transportation – I will need a way to get to practices and actually put hours into the volunteer
work.
- Time / Time Management – I am very busy with my own sport / work / school and will potentially
end up with less hours of experience than I would like to.
- Measuring Success – How can I tell that athletes are exercising what I am teaching them / how
can I measure progress? Is it individual or is it measured by the athletes that are learning?

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about your project
that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

- Age range / skill level of athletes is unknown and will play a factor in their development.
- I will only be able to put about 3 hours per week into my actual coaching since I have
commitments to my own volleyball team

References: Provide a literature review of 5-10 PEER REVIEWED ACADEMIC references: research,
videos, etc. that offer some preliminary research you have done for your project that shows you are able
to access the key information that you will need to be able to complete this project/work. Your list should
be written using correct APA formatting.

Chang, W. H., Wu, C.-H., Kuo, C.-C., & Chen, L. H. (2018b). The role of athletic identity in the

development of athlete burnout: The moderating role of psychological flexibility. Psychology of

Sport and Exercise, 39, 45–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.07.014

Golby, J., & Wood, P. (2016). The Effects of Psychological Skills Training on Mental Toughness and

Psychological Well-Being of Student-Athletes. Psychology, 07(06), 901–913.

https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2016.76092

Knight, C. J., Harwood, C. G., & Gould, D. (2017). Sport Psychology for Young Athletes. In Google

Books. Routledge. https://books.google.ca/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=AGtQDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA129&dq=how+to+leave+a+positive+impressi

on+on+young+athletes&ots=o3xwyc5eos&sig=7kwcWZrZ4WZ80QmYmZ7rZCco2qA#v=onepa

ge&q=how%20to%20leave%20a%20positive%20impression%20on%20young
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 %20athletes&f=false

Lloyd, R. S., & Oliver, J. L. (2019). Strength and Conditioning for Young Athletes: Science and

Application. In Google Books. Routledge. https://books.google.ca/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=A5WpDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT175&dq=developing+mindset+in+young+ath

letes&ots=Dnsx_pzUKc&sig=VadHRevj9qpsei7xcSSz2_AlaaM#v=onepage&q=developing

%20mindset%20in%20young%20athletes&f=false

Mansell, P. C., Sparks, K. V., Wright, J., Roe, L., Carrington, S., Lock, J. E., & Matthew James Slater.

(2023). “Mindset: performing under pressure” – a multimodal cognitive-behavioural intervention

to enhance the well-being and performance of young athletes. Journal of Applied Sport

Psychology, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2023.2296900

Thelwell, R., Harwood, C., & Greenlees, I. (2016). The Psychology of Sports Coaching: Research and

Practice. In Google Books. Routledge. https://books.google.ca/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=QaSuDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA235&dq=how+to+improve+resilience+in+spo

rts&ots=qgftBVslg4&sig=-MLEVjIqpvSs9RQRtb1jSQHiEfo#v=onepage&q=how%20to

%20improve%20resilience%20in%20sports&f=false

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