Research Summaries Research Summary 31 The Pitfalls of Questioning | Page 3
The Pitfalls of Questioning
What they did
The researchers worked with five male academy football coaches in England. All were qualified coaches at FA Level 3
(UEFA B) standard with between four and 12 years’ coaching experience.The coaches agreed to have their sessions
videoed, and in total, 1215 minutes of footage was collected, of which 158 minutes was analysed.
What was exciting about the project was how this video was analysed. Beyond just recording what was said, careful
attention was also paid to things such as overlapping talk, a change of tone (rising or falling), stress on certain words,
rushed words and especially loud words. Just from reading this list, you get a picture of how a conversation can be more
than just words.
Using this new information, the researchers identified three themes that could be imagined as the pitfalls of a
questioning approach. In all cases, the coaches were committed to a questioning approach, but the norms of coach as
expert tended to resurface, especially when examining timing and tone.These three common pitfalls were:
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not giving players enough time to respond
leading questions towards a desired response
not reacting to answers given by players.
Let them think
The analysis of sessions showed that coaches expected players
to give immediate responses to questions. Players were rarely
given more than two seconds to reply, and coaches seem to
hate silence. Indeed, they often interrupted thinking time with
more talking.
One such example of this style of questioning
was when a coach asked: ‘What did we move on to
then?’
Questions that promote critical thinking will probably require
someone to consider a number of possible solutions before
deciding on an answer. Such processes require thinking time
and possibly discussion among a group. However, the rapid-fire
discussion implied the players were expected to know the
answer their coach has asked for – mainly because it related
to instruction they had been given earlier. As such, this
questioning example is merely backing up traditional practices
of the coach as expert giving knowledge to be remembered,
rather than encouraging players to come up with new ideas.
© Alan Edwards
Following a micro-pause of less than 0.2 seconds, the
coach continued: ‘When we put another red in, what
was the decision we had to make?’