Perspectives Of Coaches Research Articles

Exploring effective (health) coaching relationships with the long-term unemployed

ABSTRACT This is the first exploratory study that centres on understanding what constitutes effective coaching relationships. Despite existing evidence highlighting the importance of the coaching relationship in achieving successful outcomes, there is limited knowledge on the specific components that make these relationships effective. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the cognitive structures and personal constructs that underpin effective (health) coaching relationships from the perspectives of health coaches, placement officers, and long-term unemployed clients with health restrictions. By employing Personal Construct Psychology and qualitative methods like Repertory Grid Technique, the study seeks to provide deeper insights into how these relationships are construed and what factors contribute to their effectiveness. The analysis identified 27 key themes that contribute to effective coaching relationships, highlighting the importance of relational constructs like trust, empathy, client readiness, and the individualised nature of perceptions, with different factors playing significant roles for different individuals. Repertory Grid Technique and Personal Construct Psychology proved effective in uncovering these cognitive structures. The study’s results offer practical implications for enhancing coaching practices, especially for vulnerable populations.

Coach perspectives on coach-athlete relationships and characteristics of Generation Z academy level rugby union players from South Africa.

The coach-athlete relationship is not merely a by-product of the coaching process but serves as its foundation. Coaches today must align their approaches with the characteristics (character, strengths, and growth areas) of a new generation of athletes, commonly referred to as Generation Z (Gen Z). Born between 1995 and 2012, Gen Z's grew up in a digital age, which shaped their character and behaviour. The purpose of the study was to explore coach-athlete relationships, the characteristics of Gen Z athletes that influence this relationship, and the process of building healthy coach-athlete relationships, from the perspectives of coaches. The study used a qualitative methodology to elicit the perspectives of 11 male rugby union coaches (M ± SD age: 42.09 ± 7.56 years; with 12.83 ± 3.48 years of coaching experience), through semi-structured individual online interviews. We developed the interview script from Jowett's Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q). The interviews were analysed using Merriam and Tisdell's six-step process. The analysis yielded six super themes (and 17 themes). 1. Coach perspectives on coaching Gen Z players (developmental facilitators and debilitators, Covid-19's effect on development). 2. Closeness between coaches and athletes [loving and caring, getting closer, trusting, (not) respecting some players]. 3. Commitment (personally and towards the team, sacrifices). 4. Complementarity (goal setting, collectively working towards common goals). 5. Co-orientation (communicating, reciprocal relationship views). 6. Developing the coach-athlete relationship (approaches thereto, practical steps). Various facets of the coach-athlete relationship are interlinked and shaped by the characteristics and behaviours of this generation of athletes. Practical recommendations are offered on how to cultivate the coach-athlete relationship on emotional, cognitive, and behavioural levels.

Investigating Painkiller Use in Amateur Football: A Coach's Perspective.

Painkiller use in amateur sports and, especially, in football is increasingly being discussed, but the scientific data on this field are very limited. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of painkiller use in amateur football from the perspective of coaches, as well as to determine how and to which extent coaches can influence their teams in terms of painkiller use and prevention. Using an online questionnaire, a cross-sectional analysis of painkiller use in German amateur football from the 4th league to the lowest amateur classes was carried out from the perspective of team coaches. A total of 628 participants were contacted, and 400 (63.7%) completed the questionnaire completely and were therefore included in the evaluation. Of the 400 participating team coaches in amateur football, 369 (92.3%) were male and 31 (7.7%) were female. The coaches reported that 36.2% (SD = 29.1) of their players have used painkillers at some point due to football-related pain in their career. The majority of coaches believed that the use of painkillers is not compatible with competition (74%), and even more believed that it is not compatible with football training (90.8%). Furthermore, 56.2% of the coaches themselves had already taken painkillers in their own football career for football-related pain, and 64% had already bought over-the-counter painkillers without a prescription. The use of painkillers increased in the higher playing levels. The availability of painkillers in first aid kits was reported by around 60%, but they were reported as freely accessible in the dressing room by only 10% of the coaches. This is the first study to describe the painkiller use in amateur football from the perspective of coaches. The prevalence of painkiller use in this study was found to be significantly lower than what is indicated in the data from the existing literature. The majority of coaches see the use of painkillers during games and training as incompatible, even though there is a large proportion of coaches who have already bought over-the-counter painkillers for football-related pain. As the first scientific analysis of team coaches, this study provides fundamental data for the prevention of excessive painkiller use in amateur football.

Athlete Insights on Climate Change and Winter Sport: Impacts, Thresholds, Adaptations, and Implications for the Future

Relying directly on snow, ice, and cold temperatures, outdoor winter sports are already experiencing and responding to climate change. Through an online survey of elite-level athletes and coaches (n = 390), and semi-structured key stakeholder interviews (n = 8), this research investigates the climate thresholds and adaptations that enable world-class performance in safe and fair competitions. Ideal competition conditions include temperatures within −1 to −10 °C, on consistent snow surfaces. Over 95% of respondents stated climate change is or will negatively impact their sport, with current adaptations ranging from good (snowmaking) to poor (canceled training runs). Beyond competitions, athletes and coaches are concerned climate change will reduce training opportunities, negatively impacting next-generation athlete development and winter sport culture. The results yield important insight into athlete and coach perspectives on climate change impacts, thresholds, and adaptations that can inform future policy, planning, and management for winter sport organizations at all levels.

The importance of paddling to surfing performance: Insights from elite athletes, coaches, and performance support practitioners

Although paddling has been widely studied, there remains a limited understanding of how a surfer's paddling ability directly influences their wave-riding performance. Using an ecological approach, this study examined the importance of paddling to surfing performance from the perspective of elite Australian athletes, coaches, and performance support practitioners. Ten elite Australian surfing coaches, ten elite Australian surfing athletes, and eight performance support practitioners completed semi-structured interviews. This approach underscores the significance of incorporating experiential knowledge from coaches, athletes, and performance support practitioners, particularly in surfing where the nature of high-performance sport requires a multi-disciplinary approach and highlights the potential value of qualitatively exploring expert perspectives. Findings showed that all participants agree that paddling is an integral aspect of surfing performance despite not being directly scored in competition. The ecological dynamics approach provided a framework for understanding the function of paddling as a tool that enables surfers to exploit the affordances of the environment and support positive performance outcomes under highly variable conditions. The findings highlight the complexities of the performer-environment relationship in surfing and draw attention to the potential for improvements in surfing performance that may be elicited by enhancing a surfer's paddling ability. This study contributes to a growing body of sports science literature investigating paddling performance in surfers and underscores the importance of paddling to surfing performance.

An Athlete-Centered Career Assistance Intervention Program for the Chinese Sport System: Reflections Into Polyphonics

The aim through this manuscript is to share our career intervention situated in individual, group, and meta-reflective practice, to help elite athletes manage changes in their careers and support their autonomy and development within the Chinese Whole Nation System (CWNS). Translating findings from a science to practice project, we provide an athlete-centered reflective intervention integrating the perspectives of sport psychology practitioners (SPPs), coaches, athletes, and parents from a Chinese collective vantage. First, we introduce how athlete career transition scholarship and theoretical frameworks guided this intervention. Second, we explain how different levels of reflective practice can be used as a part of a career intervention. Third, we provide a brief summary of recent research project from which the intervention was derived, and fourth, we describe a six-step intervention to inform future implementations.

What defines the practice of existential coaching? A qualitative study of the perspectives of existential coaches

ABSTRACT The coaching literature offers some definitions of existential coaching yet there is limited empirical research that describes the process of this approach. The aim of this study is to contribute to the field by exploring existential coaches’ perspectives on the process and value of existential coaching. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with nine existential coaches and analysed thematically. We highlight three key themes. First, the coaches reported that this approach helps their clients deal with their existential questions by fostering skills such as self-reflection, and by transforming their mindset regarding freedom of choice, the human condition and finitude. Second, their main tool is their inner philosophy that is implicit in their work. Finally, the boundaries between existential coaching and existential therapy are significantly blurred. These findings serve as an initial ground for future guidelines and regulations to be established by the individual coaching practices and professional bodies.

Children’s Mental Health: Perspectives of Canadian Minor Hockey Coaches

Children’s Mental Health: Perspectives of Canadian Minor Hockey Coaches

‘Hanging up the boots, picking up the whistle’: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the player-to-coach transition in elite football

Athletes encounter a complex decision-making process when it comes to their athletic retirement. While some athletes step away from their sport entirely, others opt to pursue a coaching career within it. Recent pedagogical research has revealed the ubiquitous nature of this phenomenon within the elite academy setting. However, despite the prevalence of this coaching pathway, there remains a lack of literature concerning this unique career transition within sports psychology. By providing nuanced and textured accounts of the transition from athletic retirement to the elite coaching environment, this study sought to broaden our understanding of the lived-experience of the player-turned-coach in elite football. The subsequent study used semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to collect and analyse the first-hand accounts of elite academy coaches who were former professional footballers in the EPL and EFL. Interpretation of the coaches’ own sensemaking allowed us to derive meaning through hermeneutic methods based on Heideggerian philosophical traditions, while convergent and divergent themes were revealed by applying an idiographic approach. The phenomenological, hermeneutic, and idiographic aspects of this investigation serve to underpin the epistemological and ontological tenets of the methodology applied in this study. IPA was chosen as a means of better understanding the perspective of coaches who have experienced this unique journey and how they navigated the re-negotiation of their athletic identity whilst simultaneously developing their coaching philosophy. Phenomenological methods view the participant as the “expert”; therefore, no hypothesis is required. However, we hoped to ascertain: [1] how the athletic identity carries over into coaching philosophy; [2] whether this linear transition mitigates the sense of loss often associated with athletic retirement; [3] how returning to coach at the club in which they developed influences the independent formation of beliefs and practices; and [4] whether there is a risk of perpetuation of practice, as clubs favour their former players over outside candidates. This study sought to understand the lived experience of the player-to-coach transition and aimed to provide insight into this process to better facilitate the athletes and coaches on either side of this phenomenon.

Assessing Refereeing Proficiency in Chinese University Basketball Leagues

This research examines the perspectives of athletes and coaches on the competence of basketball referees, with a specific emphasis on important aspects such as understanding the rules, making decisions, communicating, managing the game, maintaining consistency, and resolving conflicts. By conducting an extensive survey that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data-gathering methods, this study aims to provide a thorough understanding of the existing difficulties encountered by those involved in the field of basketball officiating. The results indicate that there is a general discontent with the level of officiating, as both players and coaches evaluated officials' performance low across all measured categories. In addition, the research reveals recurring obstacles that substantially influence the integrity and fairness of basketball tournaments. These issues encompass uneven officiating, communication hurdles, difficulty in game management, concerns over transparency and accountability, and subjective judgment calls. The research highlights the pressing necessity for focused development programs that aim to enhance the abilities of referees and tackle the highlighted obstacles in order to enhance the overall quality of basketball officiating.

Exploring the Digital Frontier in Sports Training: Coach's Perspectives, Influential Factors, and Case Study in Indonesia

This study aims to determine the perception of coaches in the entry of digitalization of sports and the effect of gender, age, region, educational background, and training experience on the perception of the entry of digitalization of sports. This research is a quantitative research with a cross-sectional survey method. The data collection instrument uses a questionnaire that has been tested for validity and reliability using the corrected item-total correlation test and the Cronbach'Alpha test. Percentage analysis was used to determine the coach's perception, while ordinal regression was used to determine the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The study results found that 39.9% of coaches agreed, and 39.4% strongly agreed with digital technology in sports. Two independent variable indicators influence coaches' perception of the inclusion of digitalization in the world of sports: the level of education and training experience. This study concludes that it is essential to develop the digitalization of training programs; this is related to the convenience of coaches and athletes in monitoring the development of student-athlete training programs. Keywords: digital, training program, coach's perception.

Exploring the impact of a coach development programme through the perspectives of Saudi Arabian sport coaches

ABSTRACT Background: National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and National Sporting Organisations (NSOs) invest significant resources into the design and delivery of learning and development opportunities for sport coaches. This has attracted the attention of sport coaching scholars, who are now focussing their efforts on better understanding the principles of effective coach learning and development. This work has led to principles associated with democratic forms of education being drawn upon to inform how coach learning could be thought about. However, this work to date has almost exclusively focussed on learning from educational programmes where the coaches are known to the coach development/research team, the programmes have been delivered face-to-face, and/or cultural considerations and expectations have not been a factor. With an international interest in sport coaching, coach education is now receiving attention beyond the western world, where coaches are not always known to coach developers prior to the start of an educational programme. These issues requiring research attention. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of an online educational programme based on democratic principles to a group of Saudi Arabian coaches working in participation and/or developmental coaching contexts. Methods: An online programme based on democratic education principles (i.e. a focus on dialogue and collaboration) took place over a nine-week period with 13 Saudi Arabian football coaches based in Saudi Arabia. Coaches were recruited through communications about the study being sent to clubs based in Riyadh, with those interested asked to contact the second author. Reflective conversations were used at two-time points; once before the educational programme to learn about the coaches and their coaching, then again afterwards to capture the perceived impact and value of the programme. Observations of seven of the 13 coaches took place prior to the educational programme with these data used alongside the first reflective conversation data to inform the programme design. Data were treated to thematic analysis. Results and discussion: Three themes were generated from the analysis. These were (1) making connections between prior and new pedagogical knowledge, (2) collaborative learning as a means of enhancing coach understanding, and (3) credibility of programme deliverers. Learning about the coaches through the reflective conversations, coach observations, and the initial face-to-face workshops supported the development of content relevant to what coaches wanted and needed to know more about. The ways in which this content was delivered through providing opportunities for coaches to discuss ideas with the education team and other coaches to understand connections between theory and practice seemed an important part of why coaches perceived the content to impact their practice. However, it was the coaches’ perceptions regarding the credibility of the educators that perhaps explained why content was so wilfully accepted as being ‘right’, and thus perceived to have been implemented into practice.

Characteristics of successful performance support team members at the Olympic games

Objectives Athletes and coaches rely on their performance support team to optimise training and competition. The specific characteristics of performance support teams that contribute to success in competition from the perspective of athletes and coaches have not been examined. Olympic gold medal winning athletes and coaches were asked about the characteristics they valued in the performance support team members who were with them at the Olympic Games. The insights shared provide important context to the role of the performance support team member, beyond technical skills, in the high-stress environment of elite sporting competition. Methods Concept mapping was completed online to collect, analyse, and visually represent insights from 30 Olympic gold medal winning athletes and coaches. The concept mapping focus prompt used to generate insights from participants was ‘When I reflect on my gold medal winning performance, a characteristic that I really valued within my support team was….’. Athletes then brainstormed, sorted, and rated relevant statements. Results Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis produced an 8-cluster map – Way of Working, Communication Style, Emotional Management in Competition, Teamwork, Commitment to Athlete Preparation, Professionalism, Embracing the Experience, and Equality – as the best visual representation of the way participants sorted the 49 unique brainstormed statements. Conclusions Olympic gold medal winning athletes and coaches prioritised ways of working, communication style, emotional management, and teamwork as the characteristics they valued most in their performance support team. These constructs, when further examined by item, encourage performance support staff to develop emotional management skills to (a) strengthen interpersonal relationships within the team, (b) enhance the working alliance with athletes and coaches, and (c) contribute to team performance overall. Concept mapping provided a structured way of collecting lived experience insights that may compliment other qualitative approaches such as structured interviews.

Coach perspectives on factors that influence the implementation of injury prevention programs in community netball: A qualitative study

ObjectiveThe Netball KNEE Program is an injury prevention program (IPP) developed by Netball Australia. It is promoted to coaches, but implementation is limited. This study explored community netball coaches’ perspectives on factors that influence IPP implementation, and ideas on how it could be improved. MethodsTwenty-four coaches from 16 netball clubs participated in semi-structured interviews that asked about their beliefs about injury prevention, use of and confidence in delivering IPP, barriers and facilitators to implementation, and suggestions to ease IPP implementation. Interviews were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. ResultsTwo themes were identified – Factors that influence IPP implementation (4 sub-themes), and Suggestions to improve IPP implementation (2 sub-themes). Coaches thought early development of injury prevention habits was important. Life roles, coaching experience and engagement with development courses influenced IPP delivery. Coaches expressed concerns about Netball KNEE program length and complexity and lack of implementation support. They suggested the need for a short simple IPP and engagement with health/exercise professionals for implementation. ConclusionsThis study engaged with stakeholders to identify barriers that need to be addressed to improve IPP implementation in netball. Coaches desired a short simple standardised IPP, and training from physiotherapists or exercise professionals on implementation.

Managing Challenging Situations in the Coach–Athlete Dyad: Introducing the Grey Zone Model From the Coach Perspective

Challenging situations and interactions are necessary and unavoidable in sport. From deselection to injury, burnout, and mental health issues, coaches and athletes will face challenging situations throughout their sporting career. The aims of this research study were to (a) introduce a conceptual model of challenging situations and subsequently to (b) explore a range of challenging situations that occur in high-performance sport, and (c) discover how such challenging situations are managed and perceived by high-performance coaches. In this study, challenging situations in coach–athlete dyads are defined as organisational, performance, interpersonal, and personal stressors that can push or pull one or both the coach and athlete, and subsequently their relationship into a state of indeterminacy (i.e., the Grey Zone) that may cause stress, strain, conflict, or resolution and understanding depending on how the challenging situations are managed. A total of 11 current high-performance and World Class Performance coaches (M = 41.64 years old, SD = 10.69 years; female = 4, male = 7), took part in a semistructured interview aided by vignettes to explore and discover the process by which coaches deal with challenging situations. Using a pragmatism approach, a content analysis guided by the conceptual Grey Zone Model was utilised to analyse the obtained qualitative data. Results indicated that coaches regularly experience challenging situations and use a variety of techniques to manage them. The Grey Zone Model is proposed as a practical tool to help coaches, athletes, and other practitioners, such as sport psychology consultants and coach developers to analyse the various phases of challenging situations.

Exploring the Multidimensional Model of Leadership Through the Lens of Coaches: An Examination of the Relationship Between Personality, Leader Behaviors, and the Coach–Athlete Relationship

The Multidimensional Model of Leadership hypothesizes that leader personality characteristics impact leader behaviors, which in turn influence collective and individual outcomes. While the Multidimensional Model of Leadership has received substantial research attention over the past four decades, the full hypothesis including antecedents, throughputs, and outputs has rarely been tested in one study. Hence, the purpose of the present study was to test the relationship between adaptive and maladaptive personality characteristics (i.e., perfectionism and passion), leader behaviors, and the coach–athlete relationship in college coaches. National Collegiate Athletic Association coaches (N = 380) completed the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-2, the Passion Scale, the Leadership Scale for Sports, and the Coach–Athlete Relationship Questionnaire. Structural equation modeling revealed that perfectionism and passion accounted for 65% of the variance for leader behaviors. Specifically, adaptive dimensions of perfectionism and passion positively predicted leader behaviors, whereas maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism negatively predicted leader behaviors. Furthermore, leader behaviors explained over half the variance of the coach–athlete relationship. The results provide support for the Multidimensional Model of Leadership from the perspective of sport coaches. Applied implications for coaches and sport psychology practitioners are discussed.

Appropriateness Applied: A Renewed Coaching Perspective to Reach Out to Every Athlete

Beyond teaching models/approaches, currently sports coaching literature is lacking on conceptual frameworks that offer a pedagogical structure capable of being adjusted and applied (i.e., appropriated) to athletes’ needs and diverse sport contexts. The Appropriateness Framework (AF) is a pedagogical structure to help sport practitioners in building meaningful learning environments while respecting inter- and intraindividual variations throughout the learning process. The innovative character of the AF relies on integrating simultaneously well-known and widespread concepts and principles from sports pedagogy and coaching, as well as extending the concept of representativeness to athletes’ features and motivations. This practical advance article aims to present the AF, namely their conceptual pillars (i.e., premises) and sequential procedures of operationalization (i.e., steps), as well as to exemplify how it can be used through practical cases. From a theoretical viewpoint, the application of AF is independent of any teaching model and/or specific athlete-centered approach. Thus, from a practical standpoint, this paper represents a guideline for coaches adopting process-oriented learning perspective that might be applied in several sport contexts and potentiates the “reaching out” of every athlete.

A coach's perspective on augmented feedback (and technology) in cricket

Coaches utilise augmented feedback to help channel learning and skill acquisition in sports. However, the rationale and pedagogical approaches underpinning feedback (and technology) strategies employed by coaches remain poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to explore cricket coaches understanding towards the role of feedback, and how feedback (and technology) strategies are enacted within practice settings, viewed within pedagogical frameworks. An online questionnaire (Qualtrics) consisted of fixed-text and free-text questions. Fixed-text responses were analysed exploring associations (frequencies, chi-square) or differences (Mann-Whitney U) between coaching groups, with free-text questions examined through reflexive thematic analysis, exploring approaches to presenting athletes with feedback (and technology use). Overall, 134 coaches (94% male, 6% female) aged 18–69 years from 12 countries responded to the questionnaire. Following silhouette and k-modes cluster analysis, results were explored for two coaching groups: community cricket coaches ( n = 84, 63%) and higher-performance coaches ( n = 50, 37%). Significant differences showed greater coaching experience, qualifications, and time spent coaching per week for the higher-performance coaching group ( p < 0.0125), in addition to higher self-efficacy around feedback, albeit with a small effect size ( p < 0.001, r = 0.29). Community coaches showed a significant difference in manipulating feedback strategies on motivational factors ( p < 0.0125). Reflexive thematic analysis identified different rationales for the perceived role of feedback and use of technology across coaching groups, underpinned by contrasting pedagogical approaches (coach-centred versus athlete-centred). Responses highlighted the co-adaptive properties of coach-athlete dyads (evident in how/why feedback was manipulated). Overall findings present opportunities to further coach education to improve understanding and operationalisation of feedback (and technology).

Introducing the technical individual contribution coefficient: a metric for evaluating performance in elite volleyball

ABSTRACT This study introduces a new metric, the Technical Individual Contribution Coefficient, that enables the quantification of the individual technical performance in elite volleyball, from the practical perspective of coaches. Additionally, three Relative Individual Contribution Coefficients provide complimentary information on the players’ relative participation. Data from 20 matches of eight teams during the 2019 Club World Championship were provided by Data Volley software. The numerical evaluation of the players’ actions was based on experts’ ratings, and all calculations were carried out using Python programming. Binomial logistic regression and the areas calculated under the receiver operating characteristic curves were utilised to predict set outcomes based on team variables. For individual analysis, Spearman’s rho correlations and multiple descriptive analyses were conducted, and dynamic visualisations in Power BI were employed to enhance interpretation. The proposed coefficients efficiently predict both absolute and relative technical performance, across all game actions. This novel metric offers a comprehensive tool for performance evaluation and has significant potential to benefit not only fans and the media, but also coaches and team managers in their decision-making process for player selection. The dynamic visualisations utilised make it easier to understand multiple comparisons and to identify ways for improving performance.

Training, children, and parents: Coach perspectives on wearable sensor data in sub-elite figure skating in the United States

Motion data from wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors is widely used in some sports but is not widely used in figure skating. In order to understand how coaches perceive the use of IMU data in figure skating training, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 8 figure skating coaches at the sub-elite level in the United States. Unlike other qualitative studies involving the role of data in sports training, our study involves amateur athletes who are children or adolescents and who work closely with a coach. Based on those interviews, we found that coaches see themselves as the gatekeeper for sharing and interpreting data, coaches consider the varying needs of individual athletes when determining how to share data with that athlete, and that coaches are cautious when sharing data with parents. Based on these themes, we propose a discussion around a whiteboard as a paradigm for presenting data and suggest abstraction of numerical data to support sharing data with skaters and parents.