The daily performance environments (DPE) of Australia’s top athletes and coaches have been audited to ensure the whole system has access to world class performance environments.

Over the past few months insights from athletes and coaches were gathered through the standardised DPE survey which was designed by the Australian high performance system.

The survey was offered to all National Sporting Organisations and the National Institute Network, with backhouse support provided by the Australian Institute of Sport.

Hockey Australia were among the early adopters with over 120 athletes within their pathway programs taking part in the DPE survey across the country.

Hockey Australia National Pathways Manager Andrew Collins said the survey provides valuable insights for the organisation and has reduced the duplication of time and resources across system partners.

“It’s important for Hockey Australia to collect athlete insights to see how our programs are performing from their perspective and monitor trends, which in the future will help inform our strategy,” Collins said.

“Previously we had been administering our own annual survey, however, the benefit of the DPE coordinated approach is that we are getting back of house support, accessible tools and access to the same data for every partner.”

Over 14,000 open field comments were collected from participating organisations, with all data and insights available for the high performance system to use.

“Hockey Australia will use the data to inform key discussions with coaches and program managers, outline where our strengths are, agree upon any areas we need to address, and identify the actions required to inform the way we deliver our programs in 2024,” Collins said.

A system review of the 2023 DPE survey will take place in the new year to optimise the questions asked for future iterations.