Editors and Institutions

Starting with Dr. Wade Gilbert as inaugural editor of the Digest and journal at Fresno State University, the original vision for the Digest section of ISCJ was to direct readers to pertinent coaching-related resources beyond the material published in ISCJ. Resources were identified by Dr. Gilbert and his coaching science graduate students. The scope of potential resources was deliberately broad, including materials such as articles from other journals, books/biographies/autobiographies, websites, and videos.

In 2014, once the Digest was established, Dr. Gilbert handed over the editorship to Dr. Sergio Lara-Bercial as the liaison between the journal and the International Council for Coaching Excellence, based at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom. The intentions of the Digest section remained the same, yet its scope was broadened slightly due to the eclectic expertise of the wider team at Leeds Beckett University. As such, the Digest started to incorporate a small number of articles that, whilst not fitting the scope of ISCJ, were deemed relevant to coaches and coaching researchers.

Most recently in 2019, Ian Cowburn and Tom Mitchell, who were regular contributors to the Digest at Leeds Beckett University, were invited to take over as co-editors of the Digest. Initially, there was an intention to perhaps widen the Digest to include an article or two in each issue from a guest contributor in a different field (e.g., nursing, aviation) that would have relevance for coaching. However, this did not happen as finding such examples was more time intensive than initially foreseen. When Dr. Bettina Callary became the editor of the ISCJ in 2020, there was a focus on articles from other journals on coaches and coaching aligned to the renewed journal mission of understanding the coaching process, coaching environment, coach education and development, coaching practices, and coaching profession.

Compiling the Digest

Each issue of the Digest is compiled by a group of volunteer academics. Volunteers are assigned a journal (or journals) from sport and exercise sciences, sport sociology, coaching, and physical education, aligned to their research interests and expertise. Each volunteer then reviews issues of their assigned journal in the previous 4 months, plus ahead of print, for those articles about coaches and coaching that would be of interest to the readership of the ISCJ. These articles are then summarized in approximately 150 words, approximately two to three per volunteer, and shared with the Digest editors. The editors review and edit the summaries before submitting to the ISCJ editor for final review and publication in the ISCJ. For the two special issues: (a) global perspectives in coach education and (b) coaching delivery and education in online/digital environments, the search process was more focused on the topic at hand and was able to look beyond the usual journals and most recent issues, with final decisions being made by the special issue editors.

Consequently, it is important to provide the caveat that the Digest is not a catch-all for coaching research in other journals, indeed it has always been, and will likely continue to be, a production of the contributors (e.g., their knowledge and expertise), the Digest and ISCJ editor(s) (i.e., reviewing article summaries, determining which are to be included/excluded), and available journals and articles (e.g., relative strength of some fields and more journals to review).

For this editorial, the Digest co-editors downloaded the Digest from each issue of the ISCJ for the first 10 years and conducted simple descriptive analyses (mode, mean, and total) of the contributors, summary type (e.g., peer review), journals cited, article titles, and article authors. A copy of the data sheet is available upon request from the lead author.

Overall Digest Numbers and Source Types

In the first 10 years, there have been 30 Digest articles comprised of 395 summaries, averaging 13 per issue. This total includes two duplicates that were included ahead of print and then again when in print, making for 393 unique articles summarized. There have been 29 contributors to the Digest, where 27 have been from the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University, and two from Fresno State University. The current Digest co-editors have contributed to over half of the total number of Digest issues so far, as shown in Table 1.

Overwhelmingly, peer-reviewed articles are the majority of the Digest, accounting for 384 (98%) of the summaries, and all of the summaries from the second volume of the ISCJ onward. The initial volume of the journal also included a policy document (International Council for Coaching Excellence [ICCE] International Coaching Framework), a project report, a position statement, three webinars, a newspaper article, and two magazine articles. The second volume onward coincided with the move to Leeds Beckett University and a deliberate intention to include more peer-review content, as seen in the type of summary.

Sources and Journals Included

A total of 32 sources have been included in the Digest, made up primarily of 27 peer-review journals (see Table 2). Of these journals, seven are sport psychology journals, contributing 151 (38.4%) summaries to the Digest. Seven are sport coaching and/or physical education journals (and a magazine), contributing 111 (28.2%) summaries. Ten are sports science or multifield journals, contributing 88 (22.3%) summaries. Four are sociology of sport journals, contributing 37 (9.4%) summaries. Finally, four are other sources, contributing six (1.5%) summaries.

Clearly, there is a heavy influence from sport psychology journals and those representing sport coaching and physical education. As per the caveats discussed earlier, the distribution is likely due to the heavy influence of sport psychology on the field of coaching, going back to some of the earliest research linked to coaching (e.g., Lacy & Darst, 1985), and the interests and expertise of many of the volunteers contributing to the Digest. Similarly, it is unsurprising that sport coaching and physical education journals are represented highly given the nature of the ISCJ and Digest. However, the relatively lower contribution of sociology journals, particularly in relation to broader sport science journals, is perhaps a concern, especially since many governing bodies, clubs, and coaches across the world (e.g., The Whyte Review; Whyte, 2022) are currently engaged in reviews of ethics, culture, and safe sport. Thus, the Digest should look to increase representation in this area.

Titles

A table of the most frequently occurring words in the titles of articles summarized for the Digest can be found in Table 3, organized into total across all 10 years as well as by individual years. Similar words were grouped together (e.g., coach and coaches, sports, and sport) and nontechnical words were removed (e.g., a, of, and). A choice was made to leave some words separate due to ambiguity over how they may have been used. For example, we did not combine athlete and athletes as they may represent different methodologies (i.e., individual and team), nor did we combine training and practice where practice might represent both practice of a sport/coach and practice by an athlete/coach (e.g., practise). Unsurprisingly, coach is the most frequent word, while coaching (kept separate as the actions of coaches) also features high up the list. Sport, youth, elite, and athletes are feature highly. As per the above, the limitation of looking only at single words means something like “development” could represent that of athletes as well as coaches, and we are unable to delineate further.

When initially planning to examine the titles, it was hoped that there might be some obvious trends in particular topics that might provide insight as to how coaching scholarship was evolving over time. Perhaps due to the nature of the journals examined, how some people define coaching as performance related (see Lyle, 2005), or what is financially possible and feasible as research, there is a consistent representation of youth and/or performance-based research. Despite this, some words are represented more in particular years, linked to special issues or potential trends in the literature. For example, “online” and “life” feature in 2023 linked to the ISCJ special issue.

Sitting below these most frequently occurring words, which typically locate the research within a context and participant group, there are a cluster of words represented 10 or more times that perhaps speak more to the areas of study covered, including: learning (29), team (27), training (24), experiences (22), role (21), practice (21), education (21), relationship (18), social (18), physical (18), psychological (14), skills (14), talent (14), rugby (13), and female (13). Again, we see no trends with any of these topics, generally having a few inclusions per year.

Conclusions and Call to Action

The Digest represents research with implications for coaches and coaching in fields adjacent to coaching scholarship that may not meet the mission for the ISCJ. Consequently, the Digest serves an important role in providing readers of the ISCJ and coaching scholars with links to literature that can support their own practice and research endeavors. Given that the remit of the Digest is to find and share coaching scholarship in other fields and journals to share with the readership of the ISCJ, these brief analyses demonstrate a general breadth of journals and topics which coaching scholars can refer to when completing their own work. Further, the data set can be made available (upon request) where this may be helpful.

Despite offering a generally broad view of fields related to coaching, it is possible to identify areas in which the Digest can be stronger (e.g., sociology) to better represent how coaching as a field of research and as a practice. This increase in breadth can be achieved by expanding beyond the current set of journals, and so we put out a call to action for interested parties to join the Digest team, particularly where they have interest and expertise beyond the journals currently summarized. If you are a coaching scholar that can help advance the Digest, please contact Ian Cowburn as the corresponding author.