Method

Descriptive phenomenology is a qualitative research methodology within the human science research paradigm, designed to understand and explain the meaning of human experiences (Fitzpatrick & Watkinson, 2003). Descriptive phenomenology is a widely-used method to explore and understand past experiences of individuals (Christensen et al., 2017). This approach has a history of being used within athletics and sport (Kristiansen et al., 2017; Ryba, 2008). This study followed a logical, systematic, and multiphase methodological approach to capturing reflections of individuals’ subjective experiences with COVID-19 and its impact on their sport injury rehabilitation. Specifically, principles of inductive reasoning were used, leading to the development of patterns, hypotheses, and theory. The use of phenomenology in this study included gathering information from participants and personal reflections from my advisor and me on the topic (a tenant of descriptive phenomenology).

Study Participants

         The current study used purposive sampling to seek current collegiate athletes within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that are or were experiencing an injury during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researcher contacted five Division I universities across the Midwest with a recruitment email. The athletic training staff at each university helped identify participants. Advertisement also took place via social media utilizing a shortened version of the recruitment email.

Twelve participants that identified with the study inclusion criteria (e.g., current NCAA athlete, 18 years of age or older, and experiencing or experienced an injury during the COVID-19 pandemic) volunteered for the study, but one dropped out before the completion of the study. This participant did not show up to the mandatory interview, so no responses were collected or analyzed from this individual. Descriptive phenomenology aims to identify accurate and comprehensive descriptions and interpretations (Ryba, 2008), so the smaller sample size was effective. Each student-athlete received a pseudonym to protect their true identity. These student-athletes provided vivid descriptions of their physical injury, their typical rehabilitation process, how COVID-19 affected this process, and any mental challenges they noticed related to both COVID-19 and their injury.

Table 1

Study Participants

Study Procedures

         Interview Guide. The semi-structured interviews had ten prompts. Based on previous literature, my advisor and I designed the questions to better understand the lived experiences of the participants (Ivarsson et al., 2017; Vann et al., 2018). The ten prompts asked participants to: (1) describe their injury and traditional rehabilitation process, (2) discuss challenges with being injured, (3) reflect on interpersonal issues due to their injury, (4) share their support system, (5) reflect on how COVID-19 affected their recovery, (6) compare rehabilitation from pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19, (7) discuss physical and psychological obstacles due to COVID-19, (8) reflect on the mental health resources available for injured student-athletes, (9) share how prepared and recovered they would have felt if their rehabilitation was not affected, and (10) share recommendations they had for athletic staff and teammates when supporting an injured student-athlete. The student-athletes could also share any additional comments at the end.

         Focus Group Interviews. The intensive focus group interviews with the eleven student-athletes took place via Zoom. Due to COVID-19, researchers could not conduct face-to-face gatherings. Participants joined one of three focus groups. Two of the focus groups had four participant. The final focus group had three participants. The interviews all began with me reading the informed consent form, requiring each participant to provide verbal consent, and asking if there were any questions from the participants. Because of the group interview format, the participants rotated who would answer the question first. The other participants could build on the previous answer or share their own thoughts. All questions allowed open-ended responses so each participant could expand and disclose any personal experiences they wished. The duration of the interviews ranged from 38 to 50 minutes. All interviews were recorded and saved to the Zoom Cloud, which allowed me to listen attentively to the responses and review the interviews later for changes in body language and pauses around certain topics and transcription purposes.

Thematic Analysis

         Following the transcription of the interviews, my advisor and I conducted a thematic analysis of the text. We reviewed the narratives and highlighted the core message in each response, eliminating the speech disfluencies, “small talk”, and other irrelevant dialogue (Lemke, 2012). The detailed approach of listening to and reading the transcriptions allowed us to have a systematic process for identifying and analyzing emerging themes. It was possible for a sentence to contain more than one theme, so we considered each phrase, statement, or sentence in isolation in order to not misunderstand the meaning of a participant’s experience (Fitzpatrick & Watkinson, 2003).

         My advisor and I organized potential inductive coding themes based on the transcriptions onto an Excel document. Inductive coding is used when there is little known about the present research subject and the researchers are conducting heuristic or exploratory research (Laverty, 2003). Inductive coding also allows for themes to emerge from the participants’ responses (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006). We then coded the findings into meaning units (Laverty, 2003), ranging from a single word to a longer phrase to capture notable ideas. Once my advisor and I had an idea of the overall data, we then established initial codes from the meaning units. Categorization was then used to generate final themes from the codes (Guest et al., 2012).

         We created explicit subthemes to further examine patterns and provide clarity on the participants’ responses. My advisor and I categorized quotes that diverged slightly from the main themes that they were under. We concluded the subthemes were meaningful due to the descriptive phenomenological process that states the ideas must be linked and rooted in participant data (Sundler et al., 2019). Evidence demonstrating the links is provided in each subtheme.

Throughout the thematic analysis process, we debated to reach agreements on the descriptions and interpretations of the participants’ experiences, a method coined peer debriefing. This method also assisted us in avoiding confirmation bias. Along with peer debriefing, we used triangulation to promote the quality control of this study (Krysik & Finn, 2013). A case for quality control could also be made for our prolonged engagements in athletics as former student-athletes, a sport psychology provider, or as a Division I coach.