Just keep swimming? Understanding the challenges and motivators for club level swimmers

Abstract

This study explores challenges and motivators for club level swimmers and identifies how their experiences can inform our understanding of how to engage and retain young people in sport. The challenges for club level athletes, and their continued participation in sport at this level, is not well researched. Research has tended to focus on performance level athletes who compete at regional, national or international levels where their performances may be widely recognised and even impact on funding for sports organisations.

Physical activity and sport participation is encouraged in young people for physical and mental health benefits. Society strives to ensure the health of its population and instil healthy practices in our children. It is important, therefore, to understand the enablers, motivations and barriers that influence young people’s continued participation in their chosen sport at all levels of involvement.

This mixed methods study focuses on competitive swimmers, aged 13 to 16 years old using a cross-sectional survey for initial data collection and then follow-up semi-structured interviews. The survey (n=355) explores the experiences of both performance and club level swimmers participating in the same environments, i.e. their club. The data collected during the survey was analysed using SPSS. The survey findings were used to inform semi-structured individual interviews with a sample of club level swimmers (n=14) who had continued in their sport without achieving a regional or national qualification standard. The interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

The findings of the study offer a unique but important insight into the reasons club level swimmers continue in their sport. Club level swimmers exhibit coping mechanisms centred in self-determination and self-motivation where their identity as an athlete, i.e. a competitive swimmer, was central. The importance of athletic identity, previously acknowledged anecdotally, is now evidenced for club level swimmers and can be recognised by policy makers and all sports organisations to effectively support athletes across this level.

Date of Award	Jul 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Gavin Davidson (Supervisor) & Paul Best (Supervisor)