The impact of coach education: Musings of a practitioner researcher

1
The impact of coach education Musings of a
practitioner researcher

• Tania Cassidy
• School of Physical Education,
• University of Otago, New Zealand

2
Genealogy/whakapapa of practitioner
researcher

• Practitioner -
• e.g., CoDe
• PHSE 201
• Researcher -
• e.g., Cassidy, Jones Potrac (2004).

3
What is the impact of coach educationon coach
effectiveness?

• Things to consider
• What is the current state of play?
• What are the assumptions informing this question?

4
What is the current state of play?

• What do we mean by coach education?
• Structural or conceptual issues?
• A critique of current coach education (Cushion,
  Armour Jones, 2003)
• Emphasises technocratic rationality
• Privileges procedural knowledge
• Little recognition that knowledge is NOT neutral
• Limited recognition of the participants
  experience

5
My observations on the state of play

• Limited empirical evidence of coach education
  practices
• Often coach education is discussed as if one
  size fits all
• Need to conduct educationally informed research
  on the various forms of coach education
• Need to value more than procedural knowledge in
  coach education

6
What are the assumptions informing this question?

• Effectiveness
• Practical, technical,
• objective, measurable
• characteristics (e.g.,
• punctuality and
• organisation)

• Quality (Carr, 1989)
• Instrumental
• Practical, technical,
• objective, measurable
• characteristics
• AND
• Intrinsic
• Subjective/social issues
• related to coaching (e.g.,
• open-mindedness
• empathy to the learner

7
The CoDe programme

• Qualitative evaluation - educational criticism
  (Eisner, 1991)
• Observation description
• Curriculum change (Fullan, 1991)
• Interpretation appraisal

8
So where to from here?

• Consider conceptual AND structural issues
• Be explicit about what we want before deciding on
  what to measure
• Be willing to experiment with a variety of
  evaluative frameworks
• Fund collaborative research projects