Elite athletes’ values in action: an important yet complicated aspect in anti-doping education

Values-based education seeks to cultivate personal responsibility, empathy, and integrity to encourage critical reflection on the (anticipated or actual) consequences of one’s choices and behaviours. To comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency's International Standard for Education, anti-doping education programmes must incorporate values-based components. To facilitate this development, we explored how elite athletes interpret and apply their values in various situations throughout their athletic careers. Adopting a qualitative description design, 13 focus groups were conducted with 60 elite athletes from 13 countries participating in 27 sports at national or international levels. Audio recordings were transcribed/translated and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Athletes noted that their values guide their actions but struggled to articulate how these values influence their behaviour. Three overarching themes were created to capture: (1) value consciousness and clarity, (2) intrapersonal value continuity, and (3) value conflict and management. Dynamic relationships between athletes’ values, priorities, and decision-making processes were evident. Specifically, the results illustrate shifts in value priorities as athletes matured and progressed in their careers, and across situations to meet situational demands whilst making behaviour personally permissible. To live up to the fundamental principles of values-based education, anti-doping programmes must incorporate activities that facilitate conceptually sound discussions and provide athletes with time and support to unpack the behavioural meaning of their values. Developing athletes’ decision-making abilities through conscious sense-making activities to anticipate the pain of a value transgression and the value of value fulfilment is key to this process.