Background: Drawing upon concepts from Mezirow's transformative learning theory, this research investigated the process of perspective transformation in three purposively sampled youth sport coaches in the UK. Perspective transformation is the process by which adults revise their culturally defined frames of reference which have arisen out of…

Background: Research indicates that some youth sport coaches have specific strategies in their coaching plan to facilitate positive youth development (PYD) while others struggle in articulating how they promote the development of their athletes in actual practice. These variations can be largely attributed to the fact that coaching is a complex…

Background: International studies have revealed that young people engage in sports because of friends, the enjoyment of participation, and the ability to feel healthy. Furthermore, it is often argued that sports should be characterized as joyful and provide both recreational and elite investment. In Sweden, many children participate in club sports…

Background: In 2006, Oslin and Mitchell published a review of the game-centred approaches (GCAs) to teaching and coaching literature highlighting a number of core concepts thought to provide justification for the use of GCAs including (a) its potential to enhance participant motivation, (b) potential for tactical transfer, and (c) development of…

Background: While there is significant interest in coach behaviour during training sessions and recognition of what it could add to existing knowledge on coaching, in-game coach behaviour has received little attention. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify coaches' in-competition communications with rugby players, through a…

Background: Elite athletes often take part in group trainings and use teammates as learning resources. Despite this, research on the training and learning of elite athletes tends to characterise this training and learning as primarily individual. Purpose: This study, explores interrelated learning processes among elite athletes by exploring the…

Background: Coach education has been identified as a key vehicle for raising the standard of coaching practice. However, the existing body of literature suggests that coach education has had a limited impact on the learning and development of coaching practitioners. In this respect, it has been contended that coach educations ills might be…

Background: There are approximately 52,000 teacher-coaches coaching 750,000 high school student-athletes in Canada. Despite this large population, Canadian high school teacher-coaches remain relatively unstudied. High school coaches in Canada are often asked to coach sports with which they are unfamiliar, and because they are not required to…

Background: Coaching holistically and viewing coaching as interdisciplinary, where different knowledges meet, interconnect and dissect, has increasingly gained recognition. In an effort to engage more effectively with this agenda and to educate coaches to meet the integrated, fluid nature of their work, Jones and Turner advocated a problem-based…

Background: The goals of participation youth sports are primarily concerned with the facilitation of positive youth development as opposed to outright success. Consequently, there are strong theoretical and empirical links between sports coaching and athlete development. Transformational leadership behaviours, in particular, have been…

Background: Sports coaching is largely a social activity where engagement with athletes and support staff can enhance the experiences for all involved. This paper examines how high performance football coaches develop knowledge through their interactions with others within a social learning theory framework. Purpose: The key purpose of this study…

Background: The literature on those who choose to become PE teachers received healthy attention in the late twentieth century but has been largely ignored since. Querying those PETE majors in first decade of the new century enables PETE faculty to have updated and pertinent knowledge of their charges. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to…

Background: Winning and losing have consistently been used as one criterion upon which to evaluate coaches. Since winning coaches have long been thought of as knowledgeable and effective at providing instruction, researchers have often studied coaches who have obtained a high winning percentage. While researchers know some about the behaviors and…

Background: Motivation is central to successful performance. In the case of sports coaches, drive is a prerequisite to sustained successful engagement in a complex, dynamic, and turbulent work environment. What fuels these coaches' drive to pursue this vocational activity? Coach motivation has been underrepresented in previous research which has…

Background: The development of high performance sports coaches has been proposed as a major imperative in the professionalization of sports coaching. Accordingly, an increasing body of research is beginning to address the question of how coaches learn. While this is important work, an understanding of how coaches learn must be underpinned by an…