utilising ‘practice theories’ and ‘theories of practice’
Tania Cassidy
Introduction
In the past decade scholarly interest in coaching has intensified, a situation that Lyle (2002) attributes to improved career opportunities in coaching, increased provision of coach education and access to coaching studies at tertiary institutions. A focus of some of this interest has been on the professionalisation of coaching, which Lyle credits to at least two factors: namely, the drive for the accountability of coaches, and the desire of those in the coaching community to be viewed as professionals. Increasingly, it is recognised that a characteristic of professionalism is having the ability to link theory and practice (Thompson 2003). Yet Thompson contends that theory does not have to be formal or academic theory, which he calls ‘theories of practice’. Theory can also be ‘practice theories’, which is the informal knowledge and assumptions built up through experience and often culturally transmitted to new recruits entering specific fields. The ‘theories of practice’ and ‘practice theories’ held by coaches have implications for how they coach, or in other words how athletes are taught, and in turn have implications for how and what athletes learn or do not learn. An example of a coach’s ‘practice theories’ is evidenced by the comments of Graham Henry (coach of the All Blacks) in Box 12.1.
Box 12.1
GH: They are different people and I think that reflects the New Zealand community, like the people today are quite different from 1996 when I coached the ‘Blues’.
JC: In what way?
GH: They’re less competitive, they’re more supportive of each other, so there are a lot of good things that have come through society right now. Like it was ‘dog eat dog’ when Fitzy and Zinny used to play for the ‘Blues’, never give a mug a chance, like Warren Gatland sat in the stands for 44 test matches, Fitzy played 96, never got on the field Warren Gatland, now that wouldn’t happen today would it? You’ve got Anton Oliver and Kevin Mealamu and Andrew Hore who all get an opportunity and they are supporting each other to try and make each other better and that is a reflection of society. … for sure the player today is a different individual than the player of 10 years ago; less competitive as an individual, and I have said I think that reflects the New Zealand system, but much more supportive of each other so there are some good, very good plusses there as well.
JC: So where does this leave you as a coach? Is the net result better or worse dealing with these young men. In other words, it’s not ‘dog eat dog’, they have a greater community sense, a community spirit in terms of their involvement.
GH: I think, I think it is a positive in many respects.
JC: Now?
GH: Yes! Yes like we would never had been able to do the rotation system without their support on that.
JC: So, 15 years ago people like Fitzy would have just totally said ‘you can go and get knotted’ if you had suggested that he was rotated.
GH: That is a very good expression (laughter).
JC: It was not the one I was going to use but we are on telly at 7 o’clock.
GH: Yes I agree, it wouldn’t have happened 10, 15 years ago. It’s happened today because it is a possibility because these guys are thinking about their fellow players and how they can improve. So there’s a lot more support of each other. I am just saying that the competitiveness of the individual who enters rugby now is probably not as competitive as they were 10 years ago because of the community that they grow up in, and part of that is the evaluation system, the examination system. Part of that!
JC: As a rugby coach would you like us to be more cut throat? Or not? More singular? More ‘dog eat dog’?
GH: Ummm, I’m fairly relaxed about that. You know you’ve got this support of each other. Also I think it reflects the Polynesian culture of New Zealand. I think the Polynesians have had a major effect on how we feel in the All Blacks. They look after the extended family, the whanau are important, looking out for brother and sister, grandma and grandad and so on and I think that has had a major positive effect on the All Black culture. So it’s all good. (TV3 2007).
In New Zealand, prior to the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the practices of the coaches and players in the All Blacks received considerable media attention. One of the policies adopted by the coaching staff was the ‘rotation policy’, which saw players in the squad being rotated into and out of the starting team, resulting in players having to share ‘their’ position. This policy proved to be contentious for some members of the media and wider rugby community. In an interview prior to a domestic series between the All Blacks, France and Canada, John Campbell (JC), a current affairs television broadcaster, asked Graham Henry (GH) to ‘look back … to the young men he coached in the Auckland [‘Blues’] team in the 1990s and compare them with the young players he is coaching now [in the All Blacks]’ (For full interview see Box 12.1).
Whenever I hear Graham Henry speak I am reminded that, before he became a professional coach, he was a physical education teacher and the Principal of a large secondary school. To have succeeded in all these positions I suggest he would have built up, through experience, a body of informal knowledge and developed assumptions about how to teach and how people learn and these would in turn influence his coaching ‘practice theories’.
It is often assumed (by some practitioners) that coaches only need ‘practice theories’. However, I suggest coaches would benefit from having some knowledge of academic theories or ‘theories of practice’ because these theories can provide a conceptual framework and a vocabulary for understanding and interpreting what is observable. What is more, ‘theories of practice’ can focus attention on those aspects of practice that are key to finding a solution to a perceived problem (Merriam et al 2007). Anecdotally, a common problem for many coaches is that the athletes do not do what coaches tell them to do. This is illustrated in the account given by a cricket coach in Box 21.2.
Box 12.2
‘The slow (and in many cases complete absence of) progress of the players in improving their batting and bowling skills, despite my best efforts in two-hour sessions twice a week, was getting more than a little frustrating. In particular, I recall having a great deal of difficulty in getting four or five of the batsmen to correct one glaring fault…. In my view at that time, I had been doing a pretty good job with these lads – I had told them what they were doing wrong, why it was wrong and what they needed to do to put it right. Because I also understood the fear of getting hit was one potential reason why they had been getting it wrong, I took pains to explain that they had less chance of being hit if they kept their back foot still. What more did they need? Yet obviously they did need something more because, despite my coaching, they were still moving their back feet when I arrived for the next coaching session … and the next!’ (Hadfield in Kidman 2005 p 31).
Anecdotal accounts suggest that this is a common occurrence for many coaches. I suggest that coaches often perceive the situation to be one of ‘the athletes not getting it’, despite the fact that they have been told over and over again what is required to improve. Coaches interpret this to be a consequence of the athletes not listening or of not being very smart. I would like to suggest that, rather than the athletes shouldering most of the blame for the lack of progress, coaches also take time to reflect on their practices and how ‘theories of practice’ could further assist them to interpret what they observe. One simple question upon which coaches could reflect when the athletes are ‘not getting it’ is, what do they know about how people learn and what does this mean for the way they work with their athletes?
The process of reflecting on the above question is highlighted in Box 12.3. In 2003 some colleagues and I were asked by a rugby provincial coaching manager to develop a coach development programme that was informed by pedagogy, sociology and psychology. Consequently, we instigated a coach development initiative (which we called the CoDe programme) with representative team rugby union coaches.
Box 12.3
Early on in the programme the coaches were asked to complete a questionnaire that introduced them to the idea that coaching was related to learning. The questionnaire was a graphic way of highlighting to the coaches that they, and their athletes, learn in different ways. The questionnaire became the vehicle for discussing ways to accommodate the learning preferences of their athletes and a catalyst for reflecting on what they already did, and could do in the future, to assist their athletes to learn.
At the completion of the CoDe programme we asked the coaches for their feedback. Six of the eight coaches said that prior to us highlighting the idea that athletes were learners they had rarely considered their athletes this way. One of the coaches said that coming to know about learning preferences had been a ‘revelation’ for him and it had changed the way that he taught his players new moves. Another coach said that because he had no training as an educator it was ‘nice to know’ about learning preferences. Even the two coaches who were employed in educational institutions recognised the worth of having material on learning preferences included in the CoDe programme. One of them said he ‘enjoyed’ us highlighting how ‘coaching is really about working with people and understanding how they learn’. The other admitted that while in his position as a university lecturer he would ‘go to all this trouble of making sure you don’t bore the shit out of them [the students] … and I guess I hadn’t really necessarily thought about applying it directly to the [players in the] rugby team’ (see Cassidy et al 2006 p 151).
I have approached the writing of this chapter from a position that assumes that if coaches wish to be viewed as professionals, or to act professionally, they should have some understanding of relevant ‘theories of practice’ as well as ‘practice theories’. I do not view one form of theory to be better than the other, rather it is my position that they complement each other and that the practices of coaches should be informed by both ‘practice theories’ and ‘theories of practice’. Coaching practice is multifaceted and as a consequence can be viewed from many different perspectives, and will be likely therefore to draw upon many ‘theories of practice’. This is aptly illustrated in the International Journal of Sport Science and Coaching where coaching is discussed from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. The value of having such a diverse forum is that readers can be introduced to new ideas and inter-connections. We do need to acknowledge that, while the cross-fertilisation of ideas may occur, most scholars who write about coaching do so from a particular understanding of ‘how the world works’ (i.e. that they have a particular ontological position). Coaches also have ontological positions, and these positions influence what questions they ask of their coaching practice and the solutions that are likely to be proposed or sought. While more often than not these ontological positions are implicit, they are nonetheless powerful. Consider how many times we do not do something or do not agree with someone because it does not ‘feel right’ and how many times are we told to ‘trust our gut’. These sayings implicitly recognise that individuals have ontological perspectives.
My own ontological position is that coaching involves human interaction (even if that interaction is mediated by technology) and, as a consequence of this human interaction, coaching practice can be viewed as a pedagogical process (which I describe later when discussing ‘theories of practice’). I am particularly interested in gaining insight into how ‘theories of practice’ and ‘practice theories’ in relation to athlete learning are understood and enacted in coaching practice. To assist me in this endeavour I draw on ‘theories of practice’ associated with pedagogy. Several years ago Armour (in Jones et al 2004 p 95) made a case for examining coaching from ‘the perspective of pedagogy’ and suggested that pedagogy was a practical as well as analytical framework for understanding coaching practice and coach education.
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the notion of ‘practice theories’ and ‘theories of practice’ and to discuss them in relation to: (a) coaching practices and athlete learning, and (b) pedagogical and learning theories. Linking practice and theory this way can lend support to those who wish to make a case for the professionalisation of coaching as well as highlight the gaps that may exist in the practice and theorising of athlete learning. To achieve this purpose the chapter is organised into two sections, (a) the ‘practice theories’ and ‘theories of practice’ relevant to understanding coaching as a pedagogical process, and (b) the ‘practice theories’ and ‘theories of practice’ associated with athlete learning. In each section there is a discussion of the opportunities and limitations associated with engaging with both forms of theory.
It is important to note that the literature relevant to ‘theories of practice’ will often be drawn from education or psychology, and not the coaching context. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, education and psychology are the disciplines from which the theoretical discussions surrounding pedagogy have emerged. Second, until relatively recently, there has been limited interest in writing or publishing material relating to pedagogical ‘theories of practice’ in a coaching context.
The place of pedagogy in coaching practice
In many English-speaking coaching communities, the term pedagogy has not had widespread appeal, usage, or a common understanding. Green and Lee (1995) suggest that one of the initial difficulties associated with getting some people to use the term pedagogy is that the term sounds too pretentious. I have sympathy with this position but believe it is worth persevering with the use of the term. If coaches do not engage with it, they limit their ability to engage with associated ‘theories of practice’, which in turn could impact on their own ‘practice theories’. Despite having a lack of widespread appeal, in recent times there has been a growing recognition and acceptance that coaching is an educational or pedagogical enterprise (see Cushion et al., 2003, Cassidy, 2004, Cassidy et al., 2004, Cassidy et al., 2009, Jones et al., 2004, Jones, 2006a, Jones, 2006b, Jones, 2007, Penney, 2006 and Wikeley and Bullock, 2006). What is more, there has been an increased interest in discussing and theorising learning within the coaching context (see, for example, Gilbert and Trudel, 2001, Gilbert and Trudel, 2005, Jones et al., 2004, Trudel and Gilbert, 2004, Cassidy and Rossi, 2006, Cassidy et al., 2006, Cassidy et al., 2009, Culver and Trudel, 2006, Demers et al., 2006, Werthner and Trudel, 2006 and Wright et al., 2007,Culver et al in press, Rynne et al in press, and the 2006 Special Issue of the International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching that focused on The Sport Coach as Learner).
There is anecdotal and empirical evidence to suggest that many coaches do, at least implicitly, value ‘all the elements of the human encounter’ (Armour 2004 p 98) in their efforts to assist athletes to develop and learn. It would be very surprising, therefore, if coaches were not engaging with, and perhaps even being explicitly aware of, pedagogical ‘practice theories’. It could even be argued that the coach’s intervention or training programme must be based on ‘practice theories’, however, formed. On the other hand, this has not been reflected in research agendas. Very few members of the sports coaching research community have paid attention to the concept of pedagogy. In other words there has been little engagement with pedagogical ‘theories of practice’. In the following sub-sections I highlight how the descriptions of the practices of elite coaches illustrate their pedagogical ‘practice theories’ and discus some of the opportunities and limitations of these accounts. This is followed by a review of work that explicitly focuses on pedagogical ‘theories of practice’ in the coaching context. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and limitations of pedagogical ‘theories of practice’.
Pedagogy and coaches’ ‘practice theories’
A common way to gain insight into coaches’ ‘practice theories’ is through observing what coaches do and how they do it. Another way is to read a coach’s (auto)biography. The appeal of this latter approach is evidenced by coaches’ (auto)biographies often being ranked in lists of Top 10 best-selling sport books. As the popularity of sport coaching courses has increased in the tertiary education sector, so too have the number of academic texts written to service the sector. Some of these texts have combined insights into what elite coaches do and how they do it with appropriate theory (to varying degrees) (see Kidman, 2001, Kidman, 2005 and Jones et al., 2004). In other words these texts have integrated discussions of coaches’ ‘practice theories’ with formal ‘theories of practice’.
In one such text, Kidman (2001) interviewed three coaches about their ‘practice theories’ and then discussed them in relation to an empowerment approach to coaching and what this means for coaching practice and the interaction between the coach and athlete and the coaching environment. In 2005 Kidman wrote a similar research book but this time she observed the practices and interviewed eight coaches, organising the discussion around the theme of athlete-centred coaching. This focus on what this means for coaching practice, and interactions between coach and athlete, was tempered with a discussion of some of the challenges associated with adopting an athlete-centred approach. These texts have been popular, possibly because Kidman includes large tracts of interview transcript from the coaches, which enable readers to gain detailed insights into the ‘practice theories’ of the coaches.
Others, such as Jones et al (2004), have also valued coaches’ ‘practice theories’ enough to write a book about them. Jones and colleagues presented the life stories of eight coaches with the aim of providing insight into ‘the coaches’ lives, careers, personal philosophies on coaching and beliefs about good professional practice’ (p 3). The approach adopted by these authors is that by understanding coaches’ lives readers can begin to appreciate their coaching philosophies and, in turn, coaching pedagogical practices. The collection is an addition to earlier work that had a similar intent (see Cushion, 2001, Poczwardowski et al., 2002, Potrac et al., 2002, Jones et al., 2003 and Light, 2004).
Opportunities and limitations of focusing on coaches’ ‘practice theories’
There is an assumption that one of the reasons coaches enjoy reading the (auto)biographies of successful or high-profile coaches is that they learn, albeit retrospectively, about various aspects of coaching (i.e. the coaches’ ‘practice theories’) that they may otherwise not have been privy to. Reading about the ‘practice theories’ of successful coaches creates a number of possibilities for ‘interrogating’ those practices. One of these is to visualise successful practice (in other words, to create an image of the coach in action). However, this may have only a limited value, partly because coaches may not have an appropriate vocabulary or conceptual framework with which to interpret these accounts. Although there has been an increase in the number of accounts focusing on coaches’ pedagogical ‘practice theories’ and increasingly the term pedagogy appears both in the sports coaching literature and in coaching resources (for examples of the latter see Sport and Recreation New Zealand and the Australian Sports Commission), I believe there has not been a corresponding increase in understanding of what the term means by many practising coaches. One possible reason for this is that authors of the literature described above and similar resources make an assumption that the readers have a common understanding of the term. As a consequence, the term pedagogy is used without any clear explanation of what it means or how it is being interpreted. Another possible reason is that many of the early discussions of pedagogy in coaching resources and literature were not robustly informed by the educational literature (see for example the Coaching Association of New Zealand Principles of Sports Coaching: Level 2 (Hillary Commission n d and Launder 1993 respectively). Rather, these resources were based upon dictionary-type definitions of pedagogy, which viewed it as ‘the science of teaching’ (Oxford 1991 p 877). I suggest that the common practice in the sport coaching community of using a dictionary definition of pedagogy to inform the discussions, interpretation and subsequent use of the term has restricted the potential for many coaches and coach educators to engage generatively with a wider body of literature. This has limited the perceived value of ‘practice theories’ and prevented coaches from framing their practice in a pedagogical context.
Pedagogical ‘theories of practice’
Any interpretation or definition of pedagogy is ‘culture-bound’ (Crum 1996). Therefore when entering into a discussion about the ‘theories of practice’ associated with pedagogy in a coaching context it is useful to recognise that there is no one consensual theory or fixed definition of pedagogy. As such it is appropriate when discussing pedagogy to be explicit about how the term is being used. One example of good practice in this regard is Armour (in Jones et al 2004) who challenged the use of a dictionary-type definition of pedagogy in sport coaching and began her discussion of coaching pedagogy with ‘a theoretical analysis of the concept’ (p 95). She drew on Leach and Moon’s (1999) interpretation of pedagogy who viewed it as being ‘about the relationships between four key elements of education: teachers, learners, learning tasks and the learning environment’ (p 96). This is similar in concept to Poczwardowski et al (2002) who used a phenomenological approach to demonstrate that coaching comprises a set of reciprocal interactions between the athlete, coach and context. Reinterpreting Leach and Moon’s definition to fit the culture of sports coaching, Armour defines coaching pedagogy as embracing ‘the four individual but interlinked elements of teaching (and coaching), learning, knowledge base and learning environment’ that also ‘has an overriding focus on the unifying goal of learning’ (in Jones et al 2004, p 94, emphasis added). According to Leach and Moon (1999) the interactions between the key elements occur in a ‘pedagogic setting’ and should be regarded as one process.
Like Armour, I too have challenged the use of a dictionary-type definition of pedagogy in sports coaching by suggesting that such a definition does little to add value to understanding coaches’ practice. It can result in the focus being on the coaches and what they do and how they do it, rather than recognising the role that the learner, the content being taught and the context in which the coaching occurs, plays in improving practice and developing players (Cassidy 2003). Whenever discussing the term I take care to state explicitly that my interpretation is informed by the work of David Lusted (1986) (see for example Cassidy et al., 2004 and Cassidy et al., 2009). Lusted (1986) argues that pedagogy is the process of knowledge production that occurs in the interactions between the teacher, the learner and the content. To use his words – ‘how one teaches [read coaches]’ is ‘of central interest but … it becomes inseparable from what is being taught, and, crucially, how one learns’ (Lusted 1986, p 3emphasis added). As with most attempts to improve both understanding and practice, there are limitations and opportunities from adopting ‘theories of practice’ such as Leach and Moon (1999) or Lusted (1986) for use in sport coaching. I will now take the opportunity to elaborate on these.
Opportunities and limitations of focusing on pedagogical ‘theories of practice’
I suggest that there are at least three opportunities for coaching practice as a consequence of engaging rigorously with pedagogical ‘theories of practice’ and demonstrating how ‘pedagogic theory’ can inform coaching, which Jones (2006a) recognises is an aspect of sport coaching that needs attention. The first opportunity for coaching practice that comes about as a consequence of drawing on pedagogical ‘theories of practice’, such as those advocated by Leach and Moon (1999) or Lusted (1986), is that the complexity of the coaching process is highlighted along with the role learning and the learner plays (see Cushion et al 2006 for a discussion about the complexity of the coaching process). Highlighting complexity can challenge the implicit hierarchies that have historically existed in the traditional interaction between coach and athlete. Rather than the emphasis being placed on the coach and instruction, which has generally resulted in an authoritarian or direct instructional approach becoming the norm, emphasis can be placed on understanding the interconnections that occur between the coach, athlete, content and the environment in which it takes place. Moreover, if coaches recognise the complexity of the coaching process they may come to recognise the importance of viewing the athlete as an integral part of the process. This may lead them to reflect upon, for example, how athletes best learn and develop, which we might argue has been a neglected aspect of coaching practice.
The second opportunity that arises as a consequence of drawing on the pedagogical ‘theories of practice’ of Leach and Moon, 1999 and Lusted, 1986 is that the interaction that occurs between the coach, the athlete and the content is considered to be a process. This has specific advantages for coaching practice. By viewing pedagogy as a process it allows the focus to be placed on ‘pedagogy as practice – rather than … a disciplined body of formalized, systematized, “scientific” knowledge about pedagogy’ (Lee & Green 1997 p 18emphasis in original). An emphasis on pedagogy as practice may enable coaches to draw on their ‘practice theories’ as well as ‘theories of practice’. This bodes well for those coaches who wish to be recognised as professionals since a characteristic of professionalism is having the ability to link theory and practice (Thompson 2003).
The third opportunity that can become available as a consequence of drawing on Lusted’s (1986) pedagogical ‘theories of practice’ is that pedagogy becomes viewed as a process of knowledge production. Anecdotally, coaches have challenged the value of focusing on ‘knowledge production’ for its own sake. This may be evident in coach education, in which coaches often fail to see the relevance of distinct bodies of knowledge. This challenge may have some merit if the concept of knowledge production is understood as a process that privileges the cognitive at the expense of the embodied or practical. However, one of the opportunities of holding a Lustedian view of pedagogy is that the focus on orthodox knowledge production can be challenged in ways that could enhance coaching practice. To understand how focusing on knowledge production opens up possibilities for coaching practice in the 21st century it is first useful to discuss the concept of knowledge before turning attention to the notion of production.
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