Coach education and development programmes are central to the professional development experiences of sport coaches. Typically, these programmes are structured and sequenced in a linear pathway, and present an opportunity for certification which can be a prerequisite to practice and/or employment. Increasingly, as learning becomes viewed as part of a coach’s lifeworld, versus simply as a means to an end, education and development provision is beginning to reflect this. This article introduces and explores the Coach Development Institute Programme, part of the Premier League’s Elite Coaching Plan, which seeks to improve the quality of football coaching in English boys’/men’s football by engaging coaches in a 2-year work-based learning opportunity. Built around a core of project-based learning and assessment, coaches are supported as they examine a series of meaningful performance problems in their unique practice environments. Through this work, we demonstrate how theories, concepts, and principles from the adult education and assessment as learning literature might work as they are applied in a coach education and development context. With such sparsity of case-based examples like this within the peer-reviewed literature, we intend that our contribution could inform, promote dialogue, and raise questions about authentically supporting coaches beyond a minimum standard of practice.
Browse
A Project-Led Framework for Coach Development in English Men’s Professional Football: A Premier League Case Study
Liam McCarthy and Claire-Marie Roberts
Acceptability and Preliminary Efficacy Testing of a Web-Based Coach Development Program Addressing Gender Essentialism Among Coaches of Adolescent Girls
Anna Goorevich, Courtney Boucher, Jekaterina Schneider, Hannah Silva-Breen, Emily L. Matheson, Aline Tinoco, and Nicole M. LaVoi
Gender essentialism in coaching discourses often goes unnoticed by coaches yet promotes gender stereotypes. Currently, no coach development program addresses gender essentialism. This study tested the acceptability and preliminary efficacy of a novel web-based coaching intervention comprising seven self-led modules, aimed at reducing gender essentialism among coaches. A pilot randomized controlled trial was conducted with 102 coaches of adolescent girls across multiple sports. Coaches were randomized into the intervention condition (n = 54) or a waitlist control condition (n = 48). Both intervention and control group participants completed a baseline self-assessment prior. Intervention group participants undertook Coaching HER Foundation modules over 2 weeks and completed a postintervention self-assessment. Control group coaches completed the postintervention assessment without completing the Coaching HER Foundation modules. Based on the data, coaches found the intervention easy to follow, relevant, applicable, and enjoyable. Efficacy analyses illustrated the intervention group reported lower levels of gender essentialism at postintervention compared with the control group. Study results must be considered in relation to the small sample size and high attrition rate (72%). Study findings will inform intervention optimizations based on participant feedback, after which Coaching HER Foundation will be made freely available within a wider coach education and training framework.
“Walking the Tightrope”: Reflections on Mobilizing Foucauldian Theory Within an Endurance Running Coach Development Intravention
Zoë Avner, Jim Denison, Tim Konoval, Edward T. Hall, Kristina Skebo, Royden Radowits, and Declan Downie
This paper presents our efforts and subsequent reflections in attempting to make Foucauldian theory accessible and relevant to a group of high-performance endurance-running coaches within the context of a coach development intravention and Foucauldian inspired workshop series. Specifically, we reflect upon our efforts to introduce coaches to Foucauldian ideas and concepts such as the knowledge–power–practice triad and upon the tensions we experienced in doing so. These tensions were related to the power of the theory–practice divide to set expectations around what it means to be an effective coach developer and a high-performance coach but also in the main related to our intentions regarding a broader shift in the coaches’ thinking concerning the influence of a number of social forces in the formation of their practices. We contend that coaching scholars invested in mobilizing ways of knowing underpinned by a different logic (e.g., relationally informed ways of knowing) within coaching and coach development settings would benefit from a deeper understanding of the politics of sports coaching knowledge and practice and how relations of power–knowledge impact learning within pedagogical contexts. Such an awareness, we believe, would in turn support more targeted pedagogical frameworks, practices, and strategies specifically aimed at disrupting established relations of power–knowledge and related problematic binary understandings such as the theory–practice divide which stand in the way of more diverse and ethical knowledge production processes in sports coaching and coach development work.
Birds of Different Feathers: Coaches’ Perspectives of Cultural Diversity and Team Dynamics in Professional Sport
Manon Eluère, Luc J. Martin, Michael Godfrey, Clifford J. Mallett, and Jean-Philippe Heuzé
As the number of international transfers increases in professional sport teams, it is unclear how this diversity impacts team functioning, and also, whether coaches feel equipped to meet this new challenge. In this study, we explored professional coaches’ perceptions and experiences of cultural diversity (i.e., national and racioethnic diversity), with a specific emphasis on implications for team dynamics. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine professional coaches from four interdependent team sports in France (i.e., basketball, football, handball, volleyball). The coaches had experience leading first or second division men’s and/or women’s teams (e.g., two highest national championships in France, Canada, or Italy) and national teams (e.g., France, Belgium, China). Based on a critical realist approach, results indicated that coaches purposefully considered cultural diversity within their teams, and discussed stereotypical differences based on nationalities pertaining to work ethic, communication, and motives for action. Coaches’ international experience and intercultural competence seemed to be key elements that influenced their willingness to consider the cultural diversity of their teams in their coaching/management strategies. Herein, we discuss the importance of purposefully considering a team’s context (e.g., sport, member composition, geographical location) and note that coach intercultural competence appears to be a concept warranting further investigation.
Exploring the Experiences of Community Sport Coaches: Stressors, Coping Strategies, and Mental Health
Kelsey Hogan, Matthew Vierimaa, and Lori Dithurbide
In recent years, athlete mental health has received increased attention from researchers; however, coaches also experience stressors that can impact their mental health. This study addressed a gap in the sport coaching literature by using a phenomenological approach to explore the experiences of community sport coaches in Canada—an understudied population that makes up a large portion of the coaching workforce. Nineteen coaches from Atlantic Canada discussed stressors, coping strategies, and mental health in one-on-one semistructured interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results are presented in three higher order themes: mental health culture in sport, influences on coach mental health, and coping strategies and supports. Our findings suggest that community coaches experience a variety of stressors (e.g., interpersonal, personal, organizational) similar to elite coaches, but that the origin of stressors may be different in the community sport context. The impact of stressors can be mitigated by coaches’ coping strategies, access to training and resources, and aspects of the role that support their mental health (e.g., rewarding work). Finally, these results suggest that training should address gaps in mental health literacy for coaches to support their own mental health needs as well as their athletes’ needs.
Mothers as Others in Collegiate Athletic Departments: The Impact of a Gendered Organization on Women Coaches
Jessica Siegele, Elizabeth Taylor, Kelsie Saxe, and Allison Smith
Work–life conflict and the underrepresentation of women in college coaching have been widely examined topics in sport research. However, more limited attention has been devoted to exploring the influence of parental status on the careers of coaches. The purpose of the study was to understand the experiences of women who voluntarily left the coaching profession because of its perceived incompatibility with motherhood. Utilizing Acker’s Theory of Gendered Organizations framework, the current study interviewed six former National Collegiate Athletic Association women coaches whose collegiate coaching careers ended prematurely due to the difficulty in balancing parental and professional responsibilities. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, three high-order themes were constructed: (a) no space for women; (b) getting out, wanting to be in; and (c) impact of gendered society. Findings indicate that women coaches with children experience unique barriers and challenges, which can ultimately lead to women exiting the college coaching profession. Findings dispel the myth that women “don’t want to coach” and implicate the compounding stress of gender roles in the family and broader society.
“There’s Not a Lot of Glory in What I Do”: Coaches’ Views on Canadian Ice Hockey and Figure Skating Development Programs for Adults
Courtney Szto and Mary Louise Adams
Hockey and figure skating are iconic Canadian sports, although it would be hard to know this from the dearth of opportunities available for adults to take up these sports or improve their skills. To learn about the factors that shape adult programming in these two sports, semistructured interviews were conducted with 16 experienced Canadian hockey and figure skating coaches who work with adults. The interviews provided insight into some of the structural barriers that adult learners and their coaches face in hockey and figure skating. Participants suggest that while adult learners are an untapped market, a sport system that privileges high-performance and youth development means that few coaches can make working with adults a priority. Coaches receive little training to work with adults, and because adults are at the bottom of the hierarchy in terms of ice allocation, it is often difficult to design programs that meet their needs. The authors call for more explicit attention to adult programming in hockey and figure skating to meet demand and improve experiences for adults.
INTERNATIONAL SPORT COACHING JOURNAL
DIGEST–VOLUME 10 ISSUE 3
Volume 10 (2023): Issue 3 (Sep 2023): Special Issue Exploring Coaching Delivery and Coach Education in Online/Digital Environments
The Element of Surprise: How Predictive Processing Can Help Coach Practitioners Understand and Develop Skilled Movement in Sport Settings
Katherine A. O’Brien, Andrew Kennedy, and Michael J. O’Keeffe
Predictive processing provides a framework for explaining how the brain solves problems of perception, decision making, and movement control by forming predictions, or plausible explanations, for what is happening in an approximately optimal manner. The strength or confidence of the prediction subjectively shapes whether something “surprising” has happened and whether a person’s perceptions and actions require adjustment. We put forward how predictive processing accounts of skill development emphasise predictive processes of action and perception that allows coaches who identify as “sporting ecology designers,” to better understand how to select the right action opportunities (i.e., affordances) to include in their training designs. We describe how motor learning can be incorporated into training designs through the element of “surprise” or the unexpected variations from the already established internal patterns that athletes have learned over time in a range of performance and practice settings. We conclude by presenting an applied example of coaching the backdoor cut manoeuver in basketball using predictive processing techniques, outlining how aspects of athlete knowledge, intentionality, memories, decision making, and prior experience cognitively coalesce during a coach-led training design to produce stable, yet flexible, movement couplings in a sport-based setting.