Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 4 | Page 12
APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 4
APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 4
Example:
Thinking about this article, some of the
knowledge presented here might be new to you.
Hopefully, having read this article, the knowledge
that you possess about types of reflection will
be increased. However, this knowledge does
not automatically make you a skilled reflective
practitioner. For this to happen, you need to
experience those different types of reflection so
you can work out whether they do or don’t work
for you, in what situations and what support you
might need to enhance this process.
So what does all this mean?
Now you have some knowledge about your
knowing! But as we have learned, knowledge is not
enough to increase your knowing-in-action!
Knowing-in-practice
“The agreed way things are done in a coach’s
social context or community.”
(Schön, 1987)
This shared way of working within your sport,
physical activity or coaching community is
undoubtedly an opportunity to grow your own
knowing-in-action. However, due to the pressure of
conforming to these social norms, it can be difficult
for a coach to reflect upon, and possibly critique,
some coaching practices that are long-standing and
taken for granted within their coaching context.
John Dewey, often considered the founder
of reflection, proposed that we need to be
open-minded before we can engage in reflective
thought. Dewey defines this open-mindedness as:
Your knowing-in-action should be put into practice
regularly.
Example:
If you want to build your ways of knowing
about questioning techniques, you need to ask
questions! As you develop new knowledge about
questioning techniques, such as different types
of question, you should experiment with them
in your coaching. If you discover a great way to
ask a question, try it in different scenarios and
with different people to test whether and how it
works across contexts.
Your knowing-in-action should be reflected upon to
grow and develop.
Example:
To build your ways of knowing about questioning
techniques, as you do questioning, you need
to reflect on the questions that you ask (and
responses that you get!) to work out how to
ask them more effectively. Consideration of
what types of question you ask, how and
why, to whom and when, to get what kind of
response from different people, will inform your
questioning skills.
Schön also suggests that an individual’s
knowing-in-action can be influenced by the shared
knowing-in-practice – the social context in which it
is taking place.
“The active desire to listen to more sides than
one and to recognise the possibility of error even
in the beliefs that are dearest to us.”
(Dewey, 1916)
This approach may be very difficult for some
coaches, especially if much of their learning
experience has been spent being exposed to views
from within the accepted knowing-in-practice.
Think about how ‘things are done’ in your sport or
physical activity, your club or circle of coaches. Are
there any coaching practices you don’t agree with?
Have you ever wondered why something is done in
a particular way? Why not question this practice by
asking coaches or do your own research?
The next time you are reading, watching, observing
or listening to something new, try to consider the
alternate point of view or method – review it with a
critical eye, rather than conform.
If, as discussed above, knowing is ‘situated in
practice’, that same knowing cannot simply be
transferred to work in all situations.
So, for example, if you observe a coach using a
games-based approach, you cannot expect that it
will work in your own coaching practice simply by
copying that exact approach. The intricacies of the
make-up of the group, the task, and the objectives
for the session would need to be considered before
you use them in your context.
This is not to say, of course, that you can’t take
aspects of their delivery to try for yourself. There
might be some golden nuggets that could work
brilliantly for you! Go through the process with a
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critical eye and think about their context and your
own context with a view to working out what might
work best for you, considering any tweaks required.
Types of reflection
There are different types of reflection that take
place at different times. Each has a different
purpose and can benefit a coach’s reflective
practice in different ways. The article will now
explore these different types of reflection and
discuss ways coaches might use them to best effect.
Reflection-on-action
“Thinking back on what you did to review and
inform how you can do something about it in the
future.” (Gilbert and Trudel, 2001)
This type of reflection takes place after a coaching
session has finished and involves the coach making
sense of their practice to improve future action,
usually the next coaching session.
This is the traditional way that coaches reflect on
their practice. It is worth considering when the
most appropriate and effective time for you to
reflect after a session is. A ‘hot’ review immediately
after a session can be good for capturing thoughts
and details about events that happened while they
are fresh in your mind. However, a ‘cold’ review
days later can also add value because you will have
had time to remove yourself emotionally from the
session and mull things over. A combination of the
two could have multiple benefits.
Retrospective reflection-on-action
“Reviewing at a time outside the action-present,
when the coach is not able to affect the process
anymore.” (Gilbert and Trudel, 2001)
This timepoint outside of the action-present
is likely to occur following the conclusion of a
coaching programme (eg at the end of a season). It
is likely that this kind of reflection will involve a
more holistic review with a view to improving the
coach’s practice across many areas in the future.
This can be beneficial for the coach to review and
evaluate the coaching programme as a whole, and
start to plan and set goals for how they might
want to develop the coaching programme and their
coaching in the future.
by reporting accuracy due to things like memory
and bias. How we remember events unfolding,
especially after the event, can be inaccurate and
clouded by any subliminal biases we have.
Therefore, there is also thought to be value
from coaches reflecting in the moment through
reflection-in-action.
Reflection-in-action
“Thinking about what you are doing, while you are
doing it.” (Schön, 1983)
Reflection-in-action happens in what Schön (1983)
describes as ‘the midst of activity’ – in coaching
terms this is likely to be during a coaching session
or game.
Reflection-in-action is a vital skill for coaches
who want to be adaptable to the people in front
of them, provide challenge to all participants and
differentiate activities to suit everybody. This is
because by definition, reflection-in-action occurs
in a timeframe in which action can still make a
difference to the situation unfolding in front of
them.
Learning through experience
The other advantage of reflection-in-action for
coaches is that this kind of thinking means learning
happens through experience, rather than from it.
This gives the coach the opportunity to try out and
adapt in the present moment, constantly striving to
improve what is happening in the session as it goes
on ‘live’. This rethinking of knowing-in-action can
not only affect what we do in the current situation
but in other similar situations in the future. The
coach builds more ways of knowing!
The coach’s reflection-in-action comes about through
a form of an ongoing reflective conversation with
the situation, where real-life problems arise on a
minute-by-minute basis. It gives the coach multiple
opportunities to practise a cycle of identifying and
setting problems, generating strategies to solve
these problems, and experimenting with these
strategies on the spot.
Such problems often arise by ‘surprise’. Something
unexpected might happen and the coach (having
noticed this) has to turn their attention to the
problem in order to try to deal with it in a period of
time that can still influence the situation.
Whilst both modes of reflection described above
are considered to be learning from experience,
there are also disadvantages of reflecting this way.
For example, there is evidence to suggest that
retrospective reporting of events can be affected
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