5 . Coach perceptions don ’ t mirror their practice
You might be thinking that surely some of these more recent approaches to coach development are a much better route to go down in supporting coaches and their practice . Indeed , you may have enjoyed recent coach development and felt ‘ fully engaged ’ in your own learning .
My point here is based on the last 10 years of research : positive perceptions of learning are a poor proxy for developing knowledge , skills and behaviour . Coaches may overestimate what they have learnt from development situations and confuse short term ‘ performances ’, such as those needed to pass assessments , with meaningful and lasting change . In addition , coaches ’ self-awareness and insights into their own coaching have been shown to be poor : often not matching up to what they are observed doing ‘ in the field ’. This is why I say , ‘ perceptions do not mirror practice ’. Current research into coaching needs to take account of this by building in ways to demonstrate how learning directly impacts upon coaching practitioners and outcomes such as their knowledge , attitudes and behaviours ( i . e . not just relying on coaches ’ opinions as the sole level of evidence ). Going a little deeper and looking at changes over time is also valuable in understanding the detailed processes involved in coaches ’ learning .
6 . Biography acts as a ‘ filter ’ for learning experiences
We have known this one for a while – it is well established that the sum of a coach ’ s previous experiences , knowledge , values , beliefs and practices - known as their ‘ biography ’ - has a big influence on what they learn ( Cushion et al . 2010 ). But how this happens , or the underpinning mechanisms that explain ‘ what works ’ and why , in coach learning , have only been evidenced in the past five years ( Stodter & Cushion , 2017 ).
My work with football coaches in the UK used a combination of semistructured interviews and video stimulated recall interviews , which involved recording coaches ’ practice , then discussing clips from the session to find out how and why they learned to do what they did . Through building up layers of this data at different time points and comparing participants undergoing a formal coach education course with those continuing in their usual day-to-day practice , I developed a theory of coach learning grounded in the data .
The theory explains a ‘ filter process ’ whereby individuals adopted , adapted and rejected ‘ bits and pieces ’ from the learning experiences they encountered , such as when attending a course or watching another coach . While the original diagram I developed to represent this process was intended for an academic audience , recently I reimagined it using a coffee filter metaphor ( see figure 1 ). For example , some ideas or concepts the coaches came across would match what they already knew , so they would reinforce their knowledge and do that thing more , as represented by the filter on the right-hand side of figure 1 . Some ideas would directly contradict coaches ’ practice , so they rejected it outright and stuck to what they knew ( shown by the filter on the right ). Alternatively ,
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