Coach experiences of formal coach education developed by national governing bodies: a systematic review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background The education and training of coaches is considered central to maintaining and improving the quality of coaching. Formal coach education is accessed by thousands of coaches each year. However, evidence would suggest this form of learning plays only a minor role in coaches’ development. One possible reason for this is the lack of consideration of the coaches’ perspective in the design of current programmes. Purpose The purpose of this study was to systematically review the existing empirical evidence about how coaches experience formal coach education programmes developed by NGBs. Methods A systematic review was conducted. Based on the ENTREQ guidelines, a comprehensive search was performed in six electronic databases (ERIC, PsycInfo, PsycARTICLES, Sport Discus, Scopus, Web of Science) using key words related to coach experience, coach education and national governing bodies. The inclusion criteria were: coach, coach trainee, coach learner; formal coach education courses developed by NGBs; peer-reviewed articles in English published between 2000 and 2021; qualitative methods studies. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data from the included articles. Results 15 studies met the study’s inclusion criteria. Analysis showed three main themes influenced coaches’ course experience: (1) coach educator pedagogy (2) learning design, and (3) course content. More specifically, coaches’ experience depended heavily on (a) whether the educator used pedagogical approaches which include interactive elements and (b) whether educators had good interpersonal skills. In addition, coaches experienced their NGB course positively when there were opportunities to apply their learning in practical-based workshops. Conclusion The review provides a detailed understanding of what coaches perceive they want and need from NGB coach education courses. While we cannot claim that the perceptions from the coaches in this systematic review can be generalised or represent the experiences of every coach, these findings provide insight to inform how future NGB’s designers and educators could think about what coaches want and need from their education and training experiences. What we found surprising was the limited number of published, peer-reviewed work, which has attempted to learn about how coaches’ experience NGB led coach education. This is especially so given this is often the only mandatory learning coaches are required to complete.