Learning to Coach through Experience: Reflection in Model Youth Sport Coaches
in Journal of Teaching in Physical EducationClick name to view affiliation
The present study examined how model youth sport coaches learn to coach through experience. Yin’s multiple-case study approach was used with six youth team sport coaches. Data were collected over an entire sport season through a series of semi-structured interviews, observations, and documents. All six case study coaches developed and refined coaching strategies through a process of reflection. Six components characterized reflection: coaching issues, role frame, issue setting, strategy generation, experimentation, and evaluation. A reflective conversation comprising the latter four components, triggered by coaching issues and bound by the coach’s role frame, was central to reflection. The selection of options at each stage in a reflective conversation was influenced by access to peers, a coach’s stage of learning, issue characteristics, and the environment. Furthermore, three types of reflection were evident: reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, and retrospective reflection-on-action.
Wade Gilbert is with the Dept. of Kinesiology, California State University Fresno, 5275 North Campus Drive M/S SG 28, Fresno, CA 93740-8018, Pierre Trudel is with the School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont., Canada K1N 6N5.
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