Team sports experiences

Director, MIMM: Dr. Laurel Trainor, Ph.D., ljt@mcmaster.ca

Student Investigators: Lucas Klein (kleinl1@mcmaster.ca), Jacob McKee (mckeej5@mcmaster.ca), Kylie Tsui (tsuik7@mcmaster.ca)

Research Coordinators: Sally Stafford (staffosm@mcmaster.ca), Susan Marsh-Rollo (marshse@mcmaster.ca)
 

Sponsors: SSHRC

Purpose of the study: We are investigating the characteristics of peak experiences of team sports athletes.

Description of the research: We will first ask you some background questions about the sport(s) you play. You will then be asked to think about a particular instance of playing your sport and describe how you felt. We will then ask you to fill out some more survey questions on your expertise.

The entire process will take around 10 minutes. If you need assistance answering any of the questions, please email kleinl1@mcmaster.ca.

Potential harms: The risks of participating are minimal. You may choose to not answer questions on the questionnaires if they make you feel uncomfortable. There is a risk that someone else in the vicinity of your workspace or who has access to your computer could see your responses; to minimize this risk, it is recommended that you complete the questionnaire in a private place and clear your web browser's history after submitting your responses.

Potential benefits: The results will not benefit you directly, but will increase our understanding of how people interact, using team sports performance as a model, which is important for understanding human behaviour and building healthy societies.

Study incentive: You will have a choice to participate in a draw for a $50 prize for completing the survey. You will need to use your email address to enter the draw, but it will not be associated with your questionnaire data, which will remain anonymous. Odds of winning the draw will depend on how many people take part in the study. We expect about 60 participants, in which case the odds of winning should be about 1 in 60. Only winners will be contacted and we expect this to happen before the end of January 15th, 2025. You are still eligible to participate in the draw even if you withdraw before completing the study by clicking on “Exit and Clear”.

Confidentiality: Your responses will be identifiable only by a participant code and the researcher will not know who corresponds to what participant code. All potentially identifying data will be kept confidential, stored securely, and may be used for future research. Data may be uploaded to an online repository and made publicly available; however, all raw survey data will go through a process of determining potential identifiability and an anonymous dataset created prior to sharing.

Confidentiality will be respected and no information that discloses your identity will be released or published without your consent, unless required by law (for example, laws pertaining to the protection of vulnerable individuals including children). Data collected by LimeSurvey is stored on secure servers at McMaster University. All data and recordings will remain in Dr. Trainor's lab, stored in de-identified form for possible future analysis, until such time as they are destroyed.

Participation and withdrawal: Participation in research is voluntary. If you choose to participate, you can skip any question you prefer not to answer and are free to withdraw from the study at any time, without any negative consequences, even after signing this form. You can withdraw at any point in the survey by clicking the “Exit and clear survey” link at the top right of each page. If you withdraw, your data will not be collected. However, once you have completed and submitted the survey you can no longer withdraw as the data is stored anonymously and does not contain any identifying information, making it impossible for us to identify which is your data. If the study contains de-identified data, you can contact us at kleinl1@mcmaster.ca to ask that your data be removed up until February 1st, 2025, when we expect to have all data de-identified for analyses.

Information about the study results: Any results from this study that are published in the future can be accessed via https://livelab.mcmaster.ca/. You can also indicate in the consent section if you wish to receive newsletters summarizing the results of this and other studies conducted in the LIVELab.

Ethics review: This study has been approved by the McMaster University Research Ethics Board (MREB#7202) and received ethics clearance. If you have concerns or questions about your rights as a participant or about the way the study is conducted, please contact:

McMaster Research Ethics Board
Telephone: (905) 525-9140 ext. 23142
C/o Research Office for Administrative Development and Support
E-mail: ethicsoffice@mcmaster.ca

Contact:
If you have any questions about this study, you may contact the lab via email at livelab@mcmaster.ca, or by telephone: (905) 525-9149 ext. 25483