1 Research Interests

Analyzing How Coaches Learn: The Need for Informal Learning Experiences Wesley D. Yourth University of the Pacific Introduction With the championship on the line he stood in front of his team. They stared at him, waiting for their instruction as they had never been in this position before, but he, Coach had been here countless times; he would know what to do. His athletes stared at him with sweat soaked jerseys, their chests heaving trying to catch their breath in the thick humid air. They could taste victory, it was within their grasp; all they needed was to execute the plan. They had spent countless hours preparing for this beginning six months ago during that first gut wrenching double-day practice. Each one of them dreamed to be here, in this very moment, on that first day. They had come along way, and now they aimed to prove their mettle and bring the trophy home. While the above paragraph is a dramatized scene of a coach and his athletes at the culmination of their competitive season, sport coaches and athletes have been exposed to and revel in the lore of the last second scoring opportunity that brings triumph over their opponents. Each coach and athlete dreams of these types of opportunities within their competitive careers, hoping to seal their legacy with what would go down in history as, The Win. Yet when these types of scenarios play out in real life athletic competitions, there are many multi-dimensional factors coming into play at that moment which could lead to

2 success or failure. Of increasing importance, as reflected in the upward trend of coaches salaries and high employment turnover rates, is the role of the coach in whether a team is successful or not. With this in mind, how a coach learns to hone his or her craft with the hope of teaching and leading their athletes to success is of utmost importance. In a review of the development of coaching as a profession, Woodman (1993) confirmed the assertion that the key to improved coaching lies with coach education and development. At the same time, while there are those people who claim coaching as an art would have us believe that good coaches are born and not made, this such view is increasingly outmoded, with experts knowledge in many fields being the focus of considerable investigation. Research shows that coaches spend upwards of 1,000 hours each year on coaching duties (training, competition, administration) while sometimes spending as little as 10 hours annually participating in formal coach education activities. (Gilbert, Ct, & Mallett, 2006; Gilbert, Lichktenwaldt, Gilbert, Zelezny, & Ct, 2009) This paper aims to look at current research analyzing how coaches learn and will make the argument that there needs to be more specific experiential curriculum aimed at teaching coaches in a more effective way. The Role of the Coach According to Hall et al. (1991), while some coaches see the role of a coach as developing sport skills to help athletes reach the professional levels, others are satisfied to watch young athletes grow and develop emotionally and physically. At the same time, winning and losing has long been the primary evaluation for coaches and coaching effectiveness, researchers have attempted to find other criteria for evaluating the work of

3 high performance coaches. Prior to moving forward and gaining a better understanding of how coaches learn, we first need to define the role of the coach as it pertains to this discussion within this paper as the role of elite level coaches varies greatly from the role youth sport coaches play. Recent research shows a steady increase in youth sport participation and accordingly an increase in the number of coaches who coach youth sport teams. (Hilgers, 2006) For the purpose of this discussion, this paper aims to discuss the learning and developmental strategies for coaches who coach youth (8-18 years) sports teams. How Coaches Learn: Formal and Informal With this rise in youth sport participation and the growing need for youth sport coaches, youth sport organizations are mandating the need for formal coaching certificate programs such as the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) in Canada, the National Coaching Accreditation Scheme (NCAS) in Australia, the National Coaching Certificate (NCC) in the UK, and the American Sport Education Program (ASEP) in the USA. These specific coaching certification programs are an example of an expert delivering information to their students who must acquire this information and then apply it in their own setting. (Sfard, 1998) Coach learning in formal coach education programs is associated with acquiring a well defined quantity of information that some experts have identified as what coaches should know in order to be certified, yet coaches have learned their craft from a variety of learning situations to include certification programs, clinics/seminars, mentoring from expert coaches, past playing experience, interactions with other coaches, books/videos, and the internet. (Wright et al., 2007)

4 While coaching education programs may lay the ground work for coach learning and knowledge these formal coaching education programs lack what Gould, et al. (1990) would describe as the most important construct, one of experiential knowledge and informal education. The process of learning through experience occurs through day-today activities and corresponds through participation which is a process of becoming, which occurs through participating in a number of activities with other people. (Sfard, 1998) Experiential Learning Theory and Coach Learning Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) was built around John Deweys philosophical pragmatism, Kurt Lewins social psychology, and Jean Piagets cognitivedevelopment genetic epistemology, and defines learning as the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience (Kolb, 1984). At the core of Kolb's four-stage model of concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC) and active experimentation (AE) is a simple description of the learning cycle which shows how experience is translated through reflection into concepts, which in turn are used as guides for active experimentation and the choice of new experience. Kolbs ELT model above can be defined as an informal learning situation where Coombs and Ahmed (1974) identify informal as, the lifelong process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment. (p. 8) Both ELT and the definition of informal learning by Coombs and Ahmed (1974) emphasize the importance of experience when it comes to coach learning and education programs.

5 Formal coach education programs utilize course content that is generally directed toward the promotion of athletic achievement, with a dominant focus on performance enhancement (Liukkonen, Laasko, & Telama, 1996). Yet the role of coaches in youth sports goes beyond just athletic achievement and performance enhancement. Coach education programs need to reflect the important of learned experiences through formal mentoring programs which research has shown to impact learning. (Cope et al., 2000; DeHaan, 2008; McCaughtry et al., 2005) Conclusion and Future Research While it seems that youth sport organizations are attempting to make a concerted effort to increase the effectiveness of coaches by mandating formal education programs leading to coaching certificates, there seems to be a disconnect between what coaches learn in a formal setting and what coaches need to know in order to be effective coaches. The lack of real experiences in the form of formal mentorships in addition to the formal coaching education programs has a real detriment on not only the capacity for coaches to learn the skills needed to accomplish their goals, but on how to help athletes navigate their own learning process. Future research needs to address how coach learning can incorporate real world curriculum in order to hone the skills of novice coaches. At the same time there has been little systematic research on the effects of coach learning on improvements in coaching practice or on athlete outcomes. Coach learning needs effective longitudinal evaluation without which it is impossible to determine what works, why and for whom. Cushion, et al. (2003) points out that coach education programs should include supervised field

6 experiences throughout, possibly in a variety of contexts, to enable coaches to consider differences, make mistakes, reflect and learn from them, and try again. In addition to the suggestions above, future research on coach learning should include investigating further ideas about motivational theories, specifically motivational climate. What skills are needed to not only understand motivational climate, but also to manipulate specific variables in order to create a positive motivational climate for athletes to compete? After all, that is why coaches coachright?

7 References Coombs, P.H. & Ahmed, M. (1974) Attacking rural poverty: how non-formal education can help (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press). Cope, P., Cuthbertson, P. & Stoddart, B. (2000) Situated learning in the practice placement, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31(4), 850-856. Cushion, C, Nelson, L., Armour, K., & Lyle, J. (2010). Coach learning and development: a review of literature. Retrieved from [Link] Learning and Dev [Link] Cushion, CJ, Armour, K., & Jones, R. (2003). Coach education and continuing professional development: Experience and learning to coach. Quest. Retrieved from [Link] De Haan, E. (2008) Becoming simultaneously thicker and thinner skinned: the inherent conflicts arising in the professional development of coaches, Personnel Review, 37(5), 526-542. Gilbert, W. D., Ct, J., & Mallett, C. (2006). Developmental paths and activities of successful sport coaches. International Journal of Sports Sciences and Coaching, 1(1), 69-76

8 Gilbert, W. D., Lichktenwaldt, L., Gilbert, J. N., Zelezny, L., & Ct, J. (2009). Developmental profiles of successful high school coaches. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 4, 415- 431. Gould, D., Gianinni, J., Krane, V., & Hodge, K. (1990). Educational needs of elite US national Pan American and Olympic coaches. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 9, 322-344. Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G. & Whitson, D. (1991) Sport in Canadian Society (Toronto, Ontario)
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9 McCaughtry, N., Cothran, D., Hodges-Kulinna, P., Martin, J. & Faust, R. (2005) Teachers mentoring teachers: a view over time, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 24, 326-343. Sfard, A. (1998) On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one, Educational Researcher, 27, 413. Woodman, L. (1993). Coaching: A Science, an art, an emerging profession. Sport Science Review, 2(2), 1-13. Wright, T., Trudel, P., & Culver, D. (2007). Learning how to coach: the different learning situations reported by youth ice hockey coaches. Physical education and sport . Retrieved from [Link]