Teaching-learning-training methods and basic psychological needs in adolescent futsal: A qualitative study

This study explores how three Teaching-Learning-Training (T-L-T)

Methods: — Analytical (AM), Situational (SM), and Global (GM) — are experienced by adolescent futsal athletes in terms of Self-Determination Theory’s (SDT) Basic Psychological Needs (BPN): autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Fifteen male recreational players (mean age 13.06 ± 1.03 years) from a city in southeastern Brazil completed three successive T-L-T blocks of three sessions each. Seven athletes, those available for interview at the end of each block, were interviewed across three moments, complemented by a researcher field diary spanning all sessions. Data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis within a constructivist, Big Q paradigm. Four transversal themes were constructed: autonomy as a situated experience (from instructional conformity in the AM to creative expression in the GM); competence as a continuous thread (from ease to game readiness); relatedness (from neutral

Background: to complex tension and shared celebration); and motivation as regulation across the same span. Two

Findings: cut across the themes. First, the BPN consequences of each

Method: were patterned by developmental readiness: the youngest athlete moved from constraint towards freedom in the opposite direction to his peers, his trajectory inverting theirs. Second, athletes managed need frustration through divergent strategies, from openly voiced conflict to quiet self-suppression. T-L-T

methods can thus be read as need-relevant contexts, although causal inferences are not warranted by the

Design: . The

findings invite coaches to align

findings invite coaches to align method choice with developmental readiness and to attend to quiet athletes, whose frustrated needs may be least visible.