Despite its obvious importance, we argue that assessment as a feature of coach education programmes has been overlooked in the peer-reviewed published literature. As a result, it is suggested that approaches to assessing sport coaches within coach education programmes can sometimes be ill considered and lead to suboptimal experiences for multiple stakeholders. To address this problem situation, we tentatively propose five interconnected principles of assessment in the first section of this article. These include the integration of teaching, learning, and assessment; assessment as a means of developing metacognitive skills; authentic/practice-based assessment; clearly and transparently foregrounding success criteria; and collaboration within assessment activities. By considering these principles, we suggest that there is much to be gained by the coach education community. In the second section, we showcase how these principles have been adopted within a football coach education programme in Flanders (Belgium). With this example, we explain why assessment became a central concern of the organisation and how they developed an effective assessment approach. Finally, we invite considered discussion and comments on our paper, with a view to starting a conversation in an area that is scarcely spoken about.
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Principles of Good Assessment Practice in Coach Education: An Initial Proposal
Liam McCarthy, Hans Vangrunderbeek, and David Piggott
The Flemish Interactive Coaching Monitoring System
Hans Ponnet, Hans Vangrunderbeek, and Liam McCarthy
As large-scale coach education programs receive a growing amount of attention and investment (e.g., human and financial resources), the case for increased understanding of their impact is a pressing matter. In this paper, the authors outlined the creation of the Flemish Interactive Coaching Monitoring System (FICOMS) within the Flemish School for Coach Education (Belgium). The FICOMS is a data warehouse consisting of multiple databases, which was set up in 2019 to integrate data on coach education and coach certifications (1960–present), active coaches within club-organized sports (2014–present) and sport clubs, sports participants, and sports infrastructure. The FICOMS provides a variety of interactive and externally facing dashboards with useful statistics on coach education and coaching in Flanders. For example, the evolution of dropout ratios of qualified versus nonqualified coaches in sports clubs and sports federations can be identified, as well as the evolution of the percentage of qualified coaches in a specific sport, sports federation, or gender, or regional differences. By describing the main characteristics of FICOMS and sharing some emerging insights and early possibilities, the authors aimed to clarify the potential of this information technology for different stakeholders, such as governments, policymakers, sports federations, Olympic committees, education partners, municipalities, and researchers.
Moving Toward Authentic, Learning-Oriented Assessment in Coach Education
Liam McCarthy, Ashley Allanson, and John Stoszkowski
As sports coaching continues to professionalize, the demand for and importance placed upon high-quality education and development programs for sports coaches is increasing. As a result, the landscape of provision is changing, and there is now a recognition of the key role that higher education institutes play in the education, development, and assessment of sports coaches. In this insights article, the authors argue that as there is a scarcity of research focused solely on assessment as a feature of coach education programs, there is something to be gained from examining how higher education institutes assess sports coaches. This represents an important contribution to the research literature, given that assessment is a feature of nearly all coach education programs and that the attainment of a specific award communicates to stakeholders (e.g., employers, athletes, parents) that a precise standard of practice has been met. As such, the authors identify how some higher education institutes are addressing the issue of assessment with sports coaches and highlight a series of assessment principles, alongside practical examples from the literature, which are intended to stimulate conversation in what the authors argue is an important area of study.
A Project-Led Framework for Coach Development in English Men’s Professional Football: A Premier League Case Study
Liam McCarthy and Claire-Marie Roberts
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.
Developing Critical Reflection Skills in a Formal Coach Education Program
Hans Vangrunderbeek, Maarten De Backer, Liam McCarthy, Evi Buelens, and Hans Ponnet
Alongside knowledge and understanding of the sport (what to coach) and strategies to support learning (how to coach), critical reflection is an important feature of high-quality coaching practice. Accordingly, there is a clear need for evidence-based tools and frameworks for appreciating and developing coaches’ critical reflection skills, through coach education programs. The purpose of this study is to share the results of an intervention intended to develop coaches’ critical reflection skills through a formal gymnastics coach education program within the Flemish School for Coach Education (Belgium). A pre–post test design was used to compare the development of written critical reflection skills in 25 gymnastics coaches (14 intervention and 11 control). Statistical analysis of data revealed that the intervention had a significant (p < .01) impact on the quality of coaches’ critical reflection. Coaches exhibited a positive, upward, trajectory from descriptive verbalizations to a deeper level of self-awareness, and greater criticality, along with demonstrating a willingness to adopt alternative ideas/approaches. Findings are discussed in relation to existing research on critical reflection as a feature of coach education. This study offers a unique critical reflection strategy that has the potential to meet the learning development needs of coaches in a formal coach education program.
University-Based Coach Education: The E-Portfolio as a Formative Assessment Tool of Student-Coaches’ Learning
Yura Yuka Sato dos Santos, Bartira Pereira Palma, Liam McCarthy, Larissa Stevanato Casline, Camila Cardoso, and Larissa Rafaela Galatti
Current research highlights the need for more studies focused on how high-quality assessment strategies can contribute to coach learning in coach education. The use of e-portfolios, as formative assessment tools, has shown to contribute to student-coaches’ learning in university-based programs, but studies on this topic are still scarce. The aim of this action research project is to investigate the potentialities and challenges of the e-portfolio as a formative learning-oriented assessment tool in an undergraduate sport coach course in Brazil. By sharing this, from the perspective of student-coaches and the assistant-professors of the course, we reflect on the evidence with the intention to both inform colleagues doing similar work and contribute to an emerging body of assessment in coach education literature.
