Research Summaries Research Summary 38 Correcting Errors in Sport | Page 2

Seeing is Believing – Correcting Errors in Sport

Introduction
Seeing an error and correcting it are essential elements
of good coaching, but if players are to understand the
error, perhaps they need to see what the coach has
seen. This simple idea has been well researched in other

areas of life but less so in coaching. Now, new research
on how coaches feed back to athletes has concluded
that providing athletes with visual access to an error is a
prerequisite for improvement.

Understanding how the body moves

This is perhaps surprising when you consider that body
movement is central to sport, and how coaches correct
these bodily movements will impact on athlete
improvement. For Bryn Evans and Edward Reynolds, two
researchers in the field of interactionism, coaching
research is too often viewed as how the coach thinks
rather than their belief that coaching takes place within a
social and interactional context.

They give an example from a recent study of a boxing
coach in action. Analysing the movements of coach and
athlete showed how the coach was conveying precise
instructions to the boxer through gestures, with the
coach’s hands working simultaneously to accomplish
different parts of the instructional activity. In other
words, the coach is using their body movements to
provide instruction. Such instructional activities were not
just thought up by the coach but developed through
interactions between both parties.

Similarly, with correcting errors, it may be the case that
the physical interactions between coach and athlete are
as important as what is being said. This opens up new
ways of thinking about coaching that can draw on
theories from outside sport.

© Elena Dijour/Shutterstock.com

In various walks of life, mastery of a manual skill is
central to being seen as competent. One way to test
this is to break down and carefully analyse the bodily
practices of everyone involved. While research has been
conducted in this way in a broad range of areas from
dentistry through to violin and crochet, little has been
done in coaching.