professional development for sports coach professionals
Kathleen M. Armour
Ben’s story
Ben started out, like so many others before him, as a volunteer in the sport in which his children participated. Before long, Ben was persuaded to attend a couple of courses in order to gain coaching qualifications (for insurance purposes, mainly). The coaching courses were relevant and interesting, but Ben found it difficult to squeeze them in to his busy schedule and he resented having to pay for them. Nonetheless, although Ben was a busy man who had a demanding full-time job, he enjoyed his involvement in the club and was happy to donate his time to the cause. As it happens, Ben was also a good coach; caring, knowledgeable and able to connect with children. Then Ben’s children lost interest in the sport and Ben moved on to other interests with them.
Jill’s story
Jill started out, like so many others before her, as a volunteer in the sport in which her children participated. Before long, Jill was persuaded to attend a coaching course in order to gain a qualification (for insurance purposes, mainly). The coaching course was relevant and interesting but Jill was unemployed and although she had spare time available, she was unable to fund attendance at more than one course. Jill enjoyed her involvement in the sports club and although she was willing and able to donate her time to the cause, her personal finances were increasingly stretched. As it happens, Jill was a good coach and one of her children was showing promise as a performer. In the end, however, Jill found a job that made it impossible to ferry her children to sports activities in the evenings and at weekends. Reluctantly, both Jill and her children ended their involvement with the club and the sport.
Sam’s story
Sam started out, like so many others before him, as a volunteer in a sport in which his children participated. Before long, Sam was persuaded to attend a couple of courses in order to gain coaching qualifications. The coaching courses were relevant and interesting and although Sam was supposed to fund them himself, he was delighted to find that his employers recognised and valued the skills he could gain (as documented by the Learning & Skills Council) and were happy to contribute to the cost. The coaching courses took the well-established ‘learning coach’ approach, and Sam found that not only was the course relevant and interesting for sports coaching, it also offered him a wide range of personal and professional development opportunities. Of particular interest to Sam was the learning support that all the coaches in the club provided for each other and access to the constantly updated on-line coaching resources, which he found to be fascinating. Indeed, as he began to learn more about children, the sport and the profession of coaching, Sam realised that the early qualifications he had taken were just the tip of a giant learning iceberg. As it happens, Sam was a very good coach. He retained his interest in coaching children long after his own children had lost interest in the sport and, last year, he resigned from his job to take up a salaried position as a Senior Coach working within a local school sports hub.
Despite the fictional nature of these coaching scenarios, this chapter is not about fantasy; it is about finding ways to make Sam’s story a possibility. Its starting point is a belief that the creation of a respected profession of sports coaching is the next logical step to be taken in the development of sport in the UK. Central to that belief is the suggestion that continuing education, or continuing professional development (CPD) is the essence of a profession and the foundation upon which a new coaching profession should be built. Brunetti (1998) p 62 states, unequivocally, that ‘a well developed, readily available continuing education program is the hallmark of a true profession’ and in the context of the teaching profession, Falk (2001) p 137 argues that ‘professional learning is the job of teaching’. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to consider some principles upon which career-long professional learning could be conceptualised, designed and organised in order to provide a secure foundation for the fledgling profession of sports coaching; thus making the ‘learning coach’ a reality.
Although there is, at this point in time, a relatively small body of literature specifically focused on coach professional learning, there is extensive research available in other fields and this can inform the development of coach CPD. In particular, recent research on professional development for the teaching profession is helpful, and whereas it can be argued that teaching and coaching differ in important ways, it can also be argued that they share essential common territory in their core educational functions. The rest of the chapter is, therefore, organised into five sections that reflect both the aspirations and the realities of the coaching profession:
1. The profession question
2. The learning question
3. Continuing professional development, ‘what works’?
4. The learning coach…the learning approach
5. Sam’s story…reprise
To be or not to be? The profession question
It seems obvious that the development of a new profession should be informed by knowledge and understanding gained from existing professions. Sports coaching needs to base the development of the ‘learning coach’ upon a clear vision of the features that it shares with other professions, and the unique features that set it apart. Indeed, the development of a new profession presents a tantalising opportunity both to learn from existing professions, and also to contribute to the knowledge base about professions more widely. Undoubtedly, however, the process of shared learning is complicated by the difficulties that exist in agreeing the defining characteristics of ‘a profession’.
Concepts such as ‘profession’ and ‘professional’ are contested, as even a cursory search of the literature will reveal. Analysis of phrases such as ‘what makes a profession’ and ‘characteristics of a professional’ leads directly to the heart of the controversy. There are two main ways in which discussions about professions are organised: first, the identification of specific occupational groups (e.g. law, medicine, teaching) with arguments about the relative claims each group has to the coveted status of a ‘profession’ (see below); and second, the development of lists of qualifying criteria to which different occupational groups can make qualifying claims. This is not the place to rehearse all those arguments, but an overview of the literature suggests the following are important considerations.
Some occupational groups appear to be very secure in their designation as a ‘profession’, suggesting there are few serious challenges to their status; obvious examples include medicine and law. Other professional groups seem to be less secure in their professional status; for example, in 1969, teaching was famously described by Etzioni as a ‘semi-profession’. Almost 40 years later, Hargreaves et al (2007) undertook a review of the status of the teaching profession and found that ‘Teachers and associated groups (teaching assistants, governors and parents) consistently perceived teaching as a less rewarded, but more controlled and regulated profession than a high status profession’ (p 1).
Day (1999) concluded that professionals can be distinguished from other groups because they have, i) a specialised knowledge base – technical culture, ii) a commitment to meeting client needs – service ethic, iii) a strong collective identity – professional commitment, and iv) collegial as against bureaucratic control over practice and professional standards – professional autonomy’ (p 5). In considering the development of a profession of sports coaching in these terms, it is interesting to note that:
(a) Coaching has an evolving specialised knowledge base, but it could be argued that the development, organisation, management and dissemination of coaching knowledge needs further consideration.
(b) There is a clear service ethic in coaching, but standards of provision to clients (athletes of all ages) are highly variable and disparate.
(c) Strong collective identity appears to be lacking except, perhaps, at the top levels of elite sport.
(d) There are critical issues to be addressed about professional autonomy and professional standards.
In addition to questions about ‘a profession’ and the characteristics of a professional, there is a further distinction to be made between being a professional and behaving as a professional. Being a professional means having the training and qualifications necessary to enter a specific profession, being bound by professional standards and a code of ethics, and having a degree of professional autonomy – all of which leads to public respect and acknowledged status in society. However, behaving as a professional is a much broader concept rooted in dedication and commitment to a job/role, and in meeting some form of agreed (or personally defined) standards when dealing with colleagues and clients. Many individuals, including coaches, could argue that they behave as professionals, even if they are not recognised as members of a profession. Thus, even in the field of teaching, which is usually acknowledged as a profession, some have argued that teachers behave as professionals but that teaching does not fulfil all the requirements for being a profession (Helsby et al 1997).
Most professions consider, from time to time, what it means to them to be a profession and what standards of professional conduct they should uphold. The case of pharmacy is both illustrative and insightful. In a paper written for pharmacy students entitled ‘On being a professional’, identification with and adherence to the profession’s code of ethics is considered to be the cornerstone of a professional pharmacist. In their practice, it is suggested that key characteristics of a professional pharmacist are: engendering trust, exercising professional judgement and, of particular interest to this discussion, engaging in continuing education:
If as a pharmacist you are going to perform your duties competently, then you will need to keep up to date with all aspects of professional practice. Thus, there will be a need continually to update your existing knowledge and skills, as well as acquiring new ones. Such skills and knowledge are essential if as a pharmacist you are going to be able to maintain and progress pharmaceutical standards, whatever branch of the profession you are employed in. Indeed, the Code of Ethics requires pharmacists to ‘keep abreast of the progress of pharmaceutical knowledge’. So any new pharmacist, if they are to be a true professional, must embark on continuing professional education. Continuing education involves more than passively attending a few courses, it involves the pharmacist taking some responsibility for his or her own learning. Thus, as a pharmacist, you should approach continuing education in the broadest sense, using all available resources at your disposal.
This example from pharmacy makes the point eloquently: CPD is the foundation of a profession and, moreover, there is a clear expectation that pharmacy professionals will be engaged actively in the development of their situated professional learning. This would appear to suggest that a constructivist approach to learning underpins CPD thinking and the ways in which pharmacy learners are to be viewed. But how are sports coaches viewed as learners, and how is this reflected in CPD structures?
The learning question
‘Learning’ is a vast concept and, within it, professional learning is both complex and contested. Colley et al (2003) point out that learning looks different when viewed from different theoretical perspectives. For example, from behaviourism learning is understood as an observable, measurable change in response to a stimulus. Cognitivism focuses on individuals’ cognitive structures and processes, and views learning as a change in those structures. More recently, constructivist theories of learning have become popular in a range of educational fields with their emphasis on the social character of learning, and situated learning emphasises the importance of the context and learning as part of social practice. Each of these views of learning has an impact on understanding of the most effective ways to design and conduct professional learning.
It is important to recognise that even where no specific learning theory is identified by a coach or by a professional development provider, the design of any professional learning activity will reflect an implicit learning theory. Bruner (1999) describes these implicit theories as ‘folk pedagogies’; i.e. strong views about how people learn and what is ‘good’ for them. The problem, of course, is that even when these theories are not made explicit, they can be both limited and limiting rooted, as they are, in personal experience and strong (often unchallenged) beliefs about good, better or best ways to learn and, by default, to coach. Yet if such beliefs are not critically reviewed, it is likely that a coach may never realise the influence of personal experience, nor appreciate the ways in which powerful assumptions about what is ‘best’ for learners are guiding practice. In other words, the coach may have (inadvertently) developed personal coach-centred practice rather than the much-vaunted athlete-centred approach. As Wragg et al (2000)p 217 expressed it in the context of teaching: ‘The way people teach is often the way they are…’.
One way to illustrate the influence of personal experiences upon beliefs about learners and learning is to conduct a critical analysis of coaches’ philosophies about coaching in the context of their personal life stories. Jones et al (2004) took this approach in their study of eight top-level coaches:
The key to analysing and understanding coaching pedagogy resides precisely in exploring the articulations … between all the elements of the human encounter that is coaching. Coaches’ lives and careers are central to their coaching philosophies that are, in turn, central to coaching pedagogy. (p 98)
Interviews with the coaches covered two main topics: their personal experiences as learners, athletes and coaches, and their coaching philosophies. Through their stories, a clear picture emerged of coaches who had built their coaching practices around their personal experiences as learners and athletes. For example, Lois Muir talked about her experiences of playing basketball; training with and being coached by men, and the ‘toughening’ influence this had on her practice when she became a netball coach: ‘I had to work for all I got. It made me realise that you only get what you put into it’ (p 86). Ian McGeechan recalled the strong influence of his teaching background: ‘I’m an education man really … I suppose I coached like I taught’ (p 54).
In other words, regardless of any formal coach education in which they had engaged, these coaches developed strong personal coaching philosophies that guided their practice. Hence, it could be argued that behaviourist views of learning simply cannot capture the complexity of learning in the social practice that is coaching. On the other hand, one of the key strengths of constructivist theories of learning is the potential they offer to analyse and understand coaching as a constructive, autonomous, active, socially situated, and cooperative process of knowledge, meaning, and skill development (Imants 2002). In other words, to borrow from Wragg et al’s (2000) earlier comment: ‘the way people coach seems to reflect who they are’.
Constructivist theories have been employed extensively in recent education research to explain the ways in which teachers learn effectively, particularly within learning communities (Day, 1999, WestEd, 2000, National Foundation for Educational Research, 2001, Guskey, 2002, Borko, 2004, Armour and Yelling, 2007 and Keay, 2006). Linked to this body of knowledge are the widely used situated learning theories of Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998) based on the notion of apprenticeship, and a view of learning as an ongoing process situated in social ‘communities’ of practice. This perspective on learning shifts understanding away from an acceptance of learning as an abstracted activity, and focuses on the combined role of social interactions and the environment in fostering learning. Included in this is the apprenticeship model of learning, whereby learners progress to the point where they can become full participants in a community of practice (e.g. the sports coaching community), which, in turn, they have helped to shape.
The apprenticeship view of learning highlights another important consideration in an understanding of coaches as learners: i.e. coaches are, in the main, adult learners. It has been recognised for some time that much learning theory is based on children (pedagogy), but that adults differ from children in some important ways. Tusting and Barton (2003) conducted a review of models of adult learning and concluded that adult learners:
• Have their own motivations for learning … purposes for learning are related to their real lives
• Have a drive towards self-direction and autonomy
• Have the ability to learn about their own learning processes
• Learn by engaging in practice
• Can reflect and build upon experience
• Often learn in incidental and idiosyncratic ways, and
• Through reflection can ‘see’ things in different ways, leading to the potential for transformative learning (p 1–2).
This latter view of learning as ‘transformative’ has been developed from Mezirow, 1997, Mezirow, 1996, Mezirow, 1994 and Mezirow, 1981 work. Mezirow’s (1997) fundamental assumption is that adults progress in their learning and understanding through transforming their existing ‘frames of reference’ (p 5) leading to shifts in perspective. Furthermore, Mezirow argued that individuals become autonomous thinkers by ‘learning to negotiate their own values, meanings and purposes rather than uncritically acting on those of others’ (1997 p 11). In the context of professional learning, therefore, it can be argued that coaches, as adult learners, need to be engaged in professional learning opportunities that have the capacity to engage them in ‘transformative’ learning. It is interesting to note that existing research in education, and more specifically physical education, suggests that few teachers routinely have access to such professional development experiences (e.g. Armour and Yelling, 2004a, Armour and Yelling, 2004b and Day and Leitch, 2007).
Continuing professional development: ‘what works’?
Given that engagement in CPD has been identified as the cornerstone of any profession, it might be expected that the design of CPD would be based, routinely, on a sound appreciation of how adults learn. Indeed, in the case of education-centred professions such as teaching, it is difficult to conceive of CPD being designed in any other way. Yet, research on CPD in education suggests that for many teachers, professional development signally fails to meet their needs, and evidence from the extensive CPD research literature in education can be informative because it is a field from which the fledgling coaching profession can learn. As Jones (2007) p 171 points out: ‘coaching has more to do with teaching (and subsequent learning) than anything else’.
There is a growing consensus in the education literature on the key characteristics of effective professional development. In an overview of the literature, Sparks (2002) concludes that effective CPD:
• Deepens teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical skills
• Includes opportunities for practice, reflection and research
• Is embedded in the workplace and takes place in the school day
• Is sustained over time
• Is founded on a sense of collegiality and collaboration.
Research that came to similar conclusions was conducted by WestEd (2000) who reported eight school case studies in the United States that ‘tell the story of students who achieve because their teachers are learners’ (p 1). The study analysed low-performing schools that were ‘turned-around’ and where ‘an exemplary professional development program’ (p 1) was central to that process. In summary, the WestEd report (WestEd 2000) identified the establishment of a school-wide professional culture of learning as the key to success in these schools and defined the following six elements as central to such a culture:
• Ensure that student-centred goals underpin all professional development
• Accept an expanded definition of professional development, embracing a wide range of formal and informal learning experiences
• Recognize, value and make space for ‘ongoing, job-embedded informal learning’ (p 22)
• Structure a collaborative learning environment
• Ensure there is time for professional learning and collaboration
• Check (constantly) whether professional development is having an impact on pupils’ learning.
Guskey (1994), however, urged caution when attempting to identify ‘what works’ in CPD. He argued for the importance of seeking an ‘optimal mix’ (p 3) of professional development activities for different teachers in different contexts. Furthermore, although there is a growing consensus in the CPD research literature about some of the characteristics of effective professional development, there is rather less agreement about the relative importance of each. Yet, as was noted earlier, growing interest in social constructivist learning theories seems to be reflected in widespread beliefs held by teachers about the value of learning with and from professional colleagues.
The development of social constructivism can be traced to the work of Dewey (1902) and latterly theories from researchers such as Vygotsky (1978). From a social constructivist perspective, Kirk and Macdonald (1998) p 377 draw upon the work of a range of authors to conclude that ‘learning is an active and creative process involving an individual’s interaction with their physical environment and with other learners’. It is clear, therefore, that a belief in social constructivism underpins suggestions that ‘professional learning communities’ (PLCs) (Wenger 1998) can be an effective mechanism for professional learning. Indeed, the desirability of establishing PLCs reverberates throughout recent professional development literature. Although a variety of different terms are given to this broad concept, such as professional community (Warren Little 2002), teacher networks (Lieberman and Wood, 2001 and National Foundation for Educational Research, 2001) and discourse communities (Putman & Borko 2000), all share a foundation in social constructivist learning theories. As Warren Little (2002) commented: ‘Research spanning more that two decades points consistently to the potential educational benefit of vigorous collegial communities’ (p 917). Recent research has reinforced the point further. In a study conducted as part of an extensive Teaching and Learning Research Project (TLRP) in the UK, James et al (2007) concluded:
Classroom-based collaborative enquiry practices for teacher learning emerged as the key influence on teachers’ capacity to promote learning autonomy with their pupils (p 216).
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