Using Appreciative Inquiry to explore Australian football coaches' experience with game sense coaching

This paper reports on a project framed as a strengths-based case study in the field of sport coaching. The aim of this research was twofold. First, the project trialled. Appreciate Inquiry (AI) for sport pedagogy research and explain how AI can be used in sport coaching research. Second, using an appreciative perspective, the aim of the research was to find greater meaning in the two coaches' practice to explain the forces driving the shaping and the implementation of Game Sense (GS) coaching. This is particularly pertinent given strong advocacy for GS as a preferred sport pedagogy but a slow deployment in the field of sport coaching in Australia. Through the story of experience that emerged a reculturing of coaching practice was revealed and the elements that sustained GS coaching highlighted. This research improves understanding of decisions made by coaches to change practice and which are sustained because they bring ‘life’ to the coach. AI has not been used previously to case study coaching practice generally and GS coaching in Australian football specifically. Further research examining the long-term and accumulated benefits of AI for qualitative sport coaching research is proposed, as is further investigation of coaches' experience with GS coaching across a broad range of sports from entry and grassroots through to elite level sport.     

Dispositions of elite-level Australian rugby coaches towards game sense: characteristics of their coaching habitus

Bourdieu's analytic concept of habitus has provided a valuable means of theorising coach development but is yet to be operationalised in empirical research. This article redresses this oversight by drawing on a larger study that inquired into how the ‘coaching habitus’ of elite-level Australian and New Zealand rugby coaches structured their interpretation and use of the Game Sense approach to coaching to illustrate how habitus can be operationalised. It focuses on the identification of characteristics of the individual coaching habitus of four elite-level Australian rugby coaches and how they shape their interpretation and use of Game Sense. Drawing on suggestions made by Lau, we identify the characteristics of four individual ‘coaching habitus’ by examining their views on: (1) the characteristics of good coaches; (2) characteristics of great rugby players and how to develop them; and (3) their dispositions towards innovation in coaching.     

The microstructure of coaching practice: behaviours and activities of an elite rugby union head coach during preparation and competition

The activities and behaviours of a female head coach of a national rugby union team were recorded in both training and competition, across a whole rugby season, using the newly developed Rugby Coach Activities and Behaviours Instrument (RCABI). The instrument incorporates 24 categories of behaviour, embedded within three forms of activity (training form (TF), playing form (PF) and competitive match) and seven sub-activity types. In contrast to traditional drill-based coaching, 58.5% of the training time was found to have been spent in PF activities. Moreover, the proportion of PF activities increased to a peak average of 83.8% in proximity to the team’s annual international championship. Uniquely, one of the coach’s most prolific behaviours was conferring with associates (23.3%), highlighting the importance of interactions with assistant coaches, medical staff and others in shaping the coaching process. Additionally, the frequencies of key behaviours such as questioning and praise were found to vary between the different activity forms and types, raising questions about previous conceptions of effective coaching practice. The findings are discussed in the light of the Game Sense philosophy and the role of the head coach.     

Carl Rogers,learning and educational practice: critical considerations and applications in sports coaching

Discussions about ‘athlete-centered’ coaching and ‘coach-centered’ coach education have started to gain increasing popularity in the field of coaching science. While it has been suggested that these ‘learner-centered’ approaches arguably align with the theoretical ideals of humanistic psychology, an in-depth examination of the implications of this learning orientation to sports coaching remains elusive. Rather, discussions have tended to be detached from theory, focusing instead on practices and methods. In light of this development, the present paper provides a detailed and critical overview of one of the leading humanistic thinkers' work, namely Carl Rogers, in order to consider what implications his theorising about ‘person-centered’ learning could have for the development of athletes and coaches. In doing so, we hope that this article will serve to advance understanding and theoretically underpin what have tended to be largely a-theoretical and superficial discussions about ‘athlete-centered’ coaching and ‘coach-centered’ coach education.     

Lived experience and community sport coaching: A phenomenological investigation

Coaching in the participation domain is the act of coaching participants that are less intensely engaged in sport than performance orientated athletes. This form of coaching is a popular activity occurring in community settings such as schools or sport clubs, and it is often undertaken with a broad range of social and health outcomes in mind. The experiences and practices of the large army of ‘community coaches’¹ have been under-explored in comparison to those of elite performance coaches who focus on competitive success and dominate much academic research. This study focuses on the little known world of the community coach. Drawing on the philosophy of phenomenologists such as Husserl, and in particular the methodology of Van Manen, the study explored the lived experiences of a single case study community coach. Derived from semi-structured interviews and in keeping with Van Manen's methodology, findings are presented in a narrative format. The narrative describes the ‘lifeworld’ of the coach and seeks to identify the ‘essential features’ of community coaching in this case. Specifically, the narrative illustrates a dichotomy in the lifeworld of the coach; between a frenetic practical delivery mode visible in the public arena and a ‘hidden’ largely unknown, private world used predominantly for planning and organising. For this case study coach, the essence of community coaching lay in two complementary activities; planning and then delivering fun based activities that achieved social, health and sporting outcomes. Additionally, interacting with others, such as parents, carers and teachers was identified as an essential feature of this coach's experience.     

Psychophenomenology and the explicitation interview for accessing subjective lived experience in sport coaching

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this position paper is to promote the interest, usefulness and specificity of a coherent system that is based on psychophenomenology as a theoretical framework [Vermersch, P. (2012). Explicitation et phénoménologie. Paris: PUF], and the explicitation interview [Vermersch, P. (2009). Describing the practice of introspection. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16(10–12), 20–57] as an appropriate and original method for studying the subjective lived experience of participants in sport situations. This original approach is associated with an epistemological posture which accords significant importance to the first-person point of view (i.e. what is appearing to a person about his own subjective lived experience in a past situation). After presenting some limitations in other phenomenological approaches and interview methods, we highlight the specificity of the theoretical background and the method of explicitation interview, for describing in detail the actions and understanding the lived experience of a person in a past and singular situation. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we provide two specific examples of explicitation interview data from an in-match player decision-making situation and an in-game half-time speech of a coach. In concluding, we contend that psychophenomenology and the explicitation interview present new perspectives and opportunities for coach education, by developing the analysis of the subjective lived experience. This may have important implications for sport-related research and the development of coaching practice and formal coach education, through closer links to real life experiences.     

Education,pedagogy and sport for development: addressing seldom asked questions

This special issue features the growing field of Sport for Development. Importantly few questions have been raised about the educative quality of sport for development programmes or the pedagogies by which they are delivered. This seems to be something of an oversight since; by definition development infers some sort of learning or educative process. This introductory paper provides an editorial commentary and summary on the papers included in this issue. We also comment on Sport for Development as a growing field of research and identify what might be some fruitful areas of research direction based on the papers included in the issue. Our reading of the papers suggest that there are important concerns related to pedagogy and educational practices in sport for development projects that stem from a dominance of neoliberal agendas, unintended though this may be. At the same time however, it is apparent that this challenge is being met head on by a growing number of researchers, and reports of this progress can be found in this issue.     

Exploring PERMA in spectator sport: Applying positive psychology to examine the individual-level benefits of sport consumption

Sport spectating provides numerous benefits for sport organisations and individuals. In this paper we use a positive psychology approach to examine the individual-level benefits of sport consumption in order to investigate the activation of five domains of well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA). Using a two-study panel research design, we collected qualitative data from a sample of Australian Rules Football consumers. In the first study, we explored how the PERMA domains were activated during the season. Study two included a follow-up interview with eight initial respondents in the off-season. We found evidence of four PERMA domains that were activated in the sport spectator context by a variety of consumer experiences. The emergence of these domains in both studies suggests sport marketers would benefit from actions including: creating more social spaces within their stadiums, hosting regular off-season events, and creating social-media based competitions which promote fan engagement and interactions throughout the calendar year.     

自喊自练教学法对于提高广播体操教学效果的实验

要文通过运用自喊自练教学方法在广播体操教学中的实验研究,并与传统教学方法进行比较分析,发现：该教学方法优于传统教学法;正确运用自喊自练教学法进行广播体操教学,不仅能大大提高教学质量,而且,还有利于培养和发展学生的体育能力。     

The antecedents and consequences of positive organizational behavior: The role of psychological capital for promoting employee well-being in sport organizations

A positive approach to addressing mental health issues in workplaces advocates the examination of an untapped resource—psychological capital—as a potential positive construct in contemporary organizational behavior. The authors tested various antecedents and outcomes of psychological capital, and examined the role of this construct in psychological well-being and job satisfaction among sport employees. To test 11 hypotheses, the researchers recruited 708 employees from the athletic departments of Division I institutions. Results indicate that the meaningful work of employees and a supportive organizational climate positively influenced psychological capital, thereby leading to high levels of job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Psychological capital also functioned either as a partial mediator or as a full mediator. In this study, the authors offer a new perspective on sport employees’ mental health outcomes, with particular emphasis on positive organizational behavior in sport settings.     

The sport cluster concept as middle-range theory for the sport value framework

The Sport Value Framework provides a new logic for value creation in sport based on the Service-dominant logic. The Sport Value Framework is a general theory with high level of abstraction, and there is no middle-range theory yet to link it to empirical data. The purpose of this research is to provide one middle-range theory connecting empirical findings to the Sport Value Framework. The authors used a case study approach of a geographical localised sport industry. Primary data collection in the Auckland sailing industry included 27 interviews and observations at events. Secondary data include 13 documents of organisational information and archival data. Data were analysed with NVivo. The results suggest that the Sport Value Framework explains value creation within a localised sport industry. The middle-range theory between the authors’ data and the Sport Value Framework is the Sport Cluster Concept. Eight of the ten foundational premises of the Sport Value Framework are relevant to the case. The results confirm the Sport Cluster Concept as a middle-range theory to explain value creation in localised sport industries through the lenses of the Service-dominant logic. This research helps sport management practitioners to better understand value creation in localised sport industries. It suggests that sport management and marketing scholars should focus more on networks of actors and related inclusive empirical research designs rather than focusing on isolated elements and single actors of sport industries.     

Letters from Early Career Academics: the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy field of play

Taking our lead from Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1929) ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, our broader project aimed to create a space for dialogue and intergenerational learning between Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) Early Career Academics (ECAs) and members of the PESP professoriate. This paper focuses specifically on the experiences of PESP ECAs. We draw upon narratives of thirty ECAs from nine different countries to gain insight into the experiences, joys, challenges and ambitions they associate with being and becoming a PESP academic. A narrative analysis of the data generated by the ECAs was undertaken. The analysis aimed to be holistic in nature, interested in form and content: both the told (the content) and the telling (how it was told). We initially focused our analysis using the six dimensions of narrative (characters, setting, events, audience, causal relations and themes). Bourdieu’s socio-analytical toolkit complemented our narrative analysis and helped us move beyond the personal narratives by linking them to the broader social practices, relations and structures of the various settings or fields (PESP, university, family) within which the participants function. The findings suggest that many ECAs are experiencing crises of habitus, as they work to suppress ethical dispositions and values and adjust to ‘the rules’ that universities increasingly play by. Our discussion engages with the affective costs of playing by these rules, and recruits Bourdieu’s notion of ‘reflexive vigilance’ to advocate for ongoing critical analysis of how power operates in the various field which academics inhabit.     

Negotiating a liberative pedagogy in sport development and peace: understanding consciousness raising through the Go Sisters programme in Zambia

Labelled as an alternative and more representative engine for development [Levermore, R. (2008). Sport: A new engine of development? Progress in Development Studies, 8(2), 183–190. doi: 10.1177/146499340700800204], the international sport development and peace (SDP) movement is under pressure to enhance its credibility and authenticity. The claims made are of SDP's capacity to deliver development to a world that feels let down by traditional development approaches, especially at the end of the Millennium Development Goals. However, for SDP to assume its true position of an authentic alternative, it needs to be wrestled from its neo colonialism and undemocratic tendencies that have privileged the Global Northern ways of being and knowing, invalidating and marginalising alternative ways of social betterment. In particular, the use of SDP to facilitate learning of social, health and economic skills has become popular [Spaaij, R., & Jeanes, R.(2013). Education for social change? A Freirean critique of sport for development and peace. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 18(4), 442–457], yet, the dominant pedagogic approaches resemble what Paulo Freire has called ‘banking education’. This concept refers to ‘depositing’ information that learners passively receive, memorise and repeat, and is one such crucial segment that needs close examination in SDP. This article draws on Paulo Freire's critical consciousness as a theoretical framework to support analysis of empirical data that examines the negotiation of a liberative pedagogy within the Go Sisters programme. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews the retrospective views of six former Go Sisters programme participants were examined. Three broad themes, in line with a liberative pedagogy, emerged from the data: (i) critical dialogue (ii) family support and (iii) Ubuntu Sisterhood. The findings highlight how Go Sisters participants negotiated the development of critical consciousness to counter the dominant banking education paradigm in SDP. Over many years the Go Sisters developed capacity to embed collective critical dialogue in programme activities that were informed by both the EduSport Foundation's organisational philosophy of Ubuntu and Global Northern neo-liberal education focused on life skills.     

The effect of nostalgia on self-continuity,pride, and intention to visit a sport team's hometown

ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of the current study was to develop a theoretical model regarding nostalgia, self-continuity, pride, and the intention to visit a sport team's hometown and examine the moderating effect of length of time as a sport fan. The study involved showing a short nostalgic video clip and investigated relationships using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multigroup SEM. The results suggest that self-continuity is an important indicator of the relationship between nostalgia and pride and enhances the intention to visit a sport team's hometown. The results also showed that self-continuity is an important indicator for new fans but not for long-term fans.     

Managing sport for social change: The state of play

Sport-for-development (SFD) provides a platform for sport to be used as a tool or “hook” to contribute to positive outcomes in areas including economic development, social inclusion, cultural cohesion, healthy lifestyles, education, gender equity, as well as reconciliation and peacebuilding. The area of sport for social change (SFSC) represents a sub-field of SFD that uses sport as a catalyst to build social capacity and develop socially and physically healthy communities. The Managing Sport for Social Change special issue of Sport Management Review brings together a collection of conceptual advances, empirical research papers and teaching case studies from a range of social and cultural perspectives, with a focus on managing sport for social change; aimed at engaging critically with sport management theory and praxis, and discussing associated practical and policy implications. Theoretical gaps and recommendations for future research, including: local engagement, innovative research methodology, and a broadening of the scope of research are also discussed.     

Social change through an urban sport for development initiative? Investigating critical pedagogy through the voices of young people

This article explores the pedagogy of an urban Sport for Development (SfD) initiative in Belgium through the voices of young people. We draw on the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire, and use qualitative research methods (i.e. observations, informal conversations, in-depth interviews and sharing circles) over a three-year period, to analyse the initiative’s actual pedagogical practice with key Freirean concepts (i.e. ‘banking education’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘dialogical action’) and virtues (e.g. respect for people’s knowledge, rejection of discrimination, caring for people). The findings reveal the presence of several Freirean virtues, emerging dialogue and, for some, action thought. Still, the SfD initiative remains at considerable distance from fully-fledged critical pedagogy. The young people in the SfD initiative nonetheless experience it as a space where they can be themselves, feel at home, gain respect, can learn to reflect and form opinions, and are temporarily freed from daily struggles such as discrimination. We discuss several pathways that could foster the capacity to organise and deliver a programme beyond emerging dialogue and action.     

Towards a critical sport heritage: implications for sport tourism

ABSTRACT

This paper reflects upon the development and increased acceptance for heritage becoming a key component of sport tourism research. The original sport heritage typology, as posited by Ramshaw and Gammon [2005, More than just Nostalgia? Exploring the heritage/sport tourism nexus. Journal of Sport & Tourism, 10(4), 229–241], is re-examined through a more critical lens, revealing additional dimensions that help augment its key components. More specifically, it is argued that future studies should consider the more intangible features of sport heritage, as well as acknowledging the expanding global nature of sport and its impact upon fandom. Also, the case is made for research to explore the dissonance inherent in much of sports heritage, as well as determining where the power lies in allocating and championing current sport heritages. Lastly, the more general implications to the field of sport tourism are offered with particular regard to motivation, place, and consumption.     

The role of sport in community capacity building: An examination of sport for development research and practice

Population health promotion and preventing disease remain important global policy goals. Because of the complex nature of health, and the recognition of the limits of individual-oriented health promotion strategies, recent decades have seen increased interest by public health researchers and practitioners in community-level approaches to health promotion. Increasingly, community-level approaches have been based upon the theoretical concept of community capacity. Community capacity is seen as a critical mechanism for supporting and promoting community-level health and through the sport for development (SFD) model, there is evidence of sport being an important practice for community development. However, little is known about the potential role of sport as a mechanism for building community capacity. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to examine the efficacy of sport to contribute to the process of community capacity building. Using seven established dimensions of community capacity, there is evidence that many SFD practices can effectively facilitate dimensions of community capacity when conducted in intentional, culturally relevant ways. Specifically, sport has demonstrated efficacy in building local skills, knowledge, and resources, increasing social cohesion, facilitating structures and mechanisms for community dialog, leadership development, and encouraging civic participation. More research is needed to understand sport's ability to promote capacity building through collective action, developing value systems that support democracy and inclusion, and encouraging critical reflection. To increase the usefulness of sport to support community health development, SFD principles should be included as part of sport management university curricula. Additionally, practitioners need grounding in community and human development research to support non-sport components of programs. Finally, participatory action research techniques should be used by researchers and practitioners. Sport-based development often generates high interest from residents, funders, and policy makers. By applying principles of community capacity building, sport may be uniquely positioned to enhance sustainable community health development initiatives.     

基于大学生积极心理构建的高校体育教育整体化模式研究

扩招后大学生心理健康问题愈加凸显,从体育教育的角度出发,探讨整体化的高校体育教育模式对大学生不良心理的积极影响,期望高校体育教育能成为构建大学生积极心理的一个重要渠道与方式,从而为高校心理健康教育提供策略与方法,为高校体育教育的发展提供新的思路和模式。     

Systematically increasing contextual interference is beneficial for learning sport skills

Abstract

To better understand the contextual interference effect, in two experiments we investigated a form of practice schedule that provided novices with systematic increases in contextual interference. This new type of practice schedule was compared with traditional blocked and random scheduling for two types of sports skills. In Experiment 1, we tested the hypothesis that practising variations of the same task with systematic increases in contextual interference would lead to superior performance compared with blocked or random scheduling. Participants practised golf putting tasks following a blocked, random or increasing schedule, which involved initial blocked trials, followed by serial practice trials, and ended with random scheduling. Participants who followed the increasing schedule had superior retention test performance. In Experiment 2, we tested if these learning benefits were observed when learning tasks controlled by different generalized motor programs. Participants practised three different basketball passes (chest, overhead, single arm) in a blocked, random or increasing schedule. Participants practising with gradual increases in contextual interference performed better on retention and transfer tests than participants practising with blocked or random scheduling. The results of these two experiments indicate that a practice schedule offering systematic increases in contextual interference facilitates skill learning.