Education or Development Clarifying the Difference Between Coach Education and Coach Development

Any cursory analysis of sports coaching would reveal that Coach Education and Coach Development are terms that occupy a significant position within the vocabulary of the coaching industry. Yet there arguably remains very little debate or meaningful analysis as to the exact and precise meaning of these terms in so far as what is meant for example by coach education and is this the same or different to coach development? It tends to be the case, it could be said, that the two terms are used interchangeably without much thought given to a more precise understanding of the learning activities they describe. Precision and accuracy in the use of language might not matter to some, but in this case there is good reason to be more specific about the terms coach education and coach development because they arguably refer to different activities and different processes that when combined effectively contribute to the learning process that all sports coaches undergo. There can be little debate that the level of knowledge and understanding as to how sports coaches develop their practice and become more expert has evolved significantly in the past decade. It has become increasingly evident that coaches learn through engaging in a wide range of opportunities not least reflecting on their own practice and experience, and that the pace and trajectory of learning is specific to each individual coach. Furthermore as Turner, Nelson and Potraci have indicated in a recent paper the process of becoming an expert coach is a continuous journey of learning in which expertise is constantly made and remade as coaches experience different issues and different contexts. Expertise in this sense is always in the making, contingent on the coaching context and not necessarily a linear process that progresses through neatly identified stages of development. Despite the accumulation of knowledge examining how coaches learn and get better at what they do, there is still an inadequate conceptualisation or modelling of their learning journey. The 4x4 Coach Development model developed by sports coach UK is a good example. Whilst the 4x4 recognises that coaches work with at least four different types of populations the model is essentially a qualification led model in so far as each level corresponds to the four level qualification system that is now common across Europe. The 4x4 does little to capture the learning that takes place outside of this qualification structure which many would argue is at least as important, if nor more important, than the learning that takes place through a typical National Governing Body (NGB) coaching qualification. In this respect a more precise definition of coach education and coach development may help to capture the broader and more expansive forms of learning that coaches can, and do engage in, and how those forms of learning can be catorgorised.

Coach Education may be, and perhaps should be, defined, by the formal, structured and highly mediated qualifications that coaches undertake. Coach Education is characterised by a formal and structured approach to learning,

there is an approved curriculum developed, delivered and awarded by recognised organisations through a course of learning. The curriculum is more likely than not to involve a form of assessment designed to establish the competency and capabilities of the coaches on the course, and successful completion of the assessment will entail that coaches are awarded the qualification. The qualification will be quality assured through administrative layers of approved and trained tutors, assessors, verifiers, examiners and reviewers, and the qualification system will be aligned to one or more qualification framework. Coach Education is therefore the education of coaches through a system of approved qualifications that predominantly signifies the level of competency and capability a coach can demonstrate through the assessment of their coaching by a trained assessor. Coach Education in this sense, or at the very least in the UK, reflects the traditional and well established National Governing Body (NGB) qualification system. Coaches register for a course, engage in a period of learning, are likely to be assessed at some point and after completing this assessment will be awarded the qualification. This process is contained within a system that in the UK has evolved to ensure a degree of consistency and standardisation across NGBs through the UKCC endorsement process. This endorsement process is itself aligned to National Occupational Standards for Coaching as well as the requirements of the national qualifications agency Ofqual. It might be argued that this coach education system dominates the landscape of coach learning even though some have argued that NGB qualifications have little impact on coaching practice and behaviour. Irrespective of these arguments, and however the impact of coaching qualifications can be successfully measured, it remains that the established system of NGB awards is an important part of the process through which coaches learn. The point being made here is that the NGB qualification system represents a particular form and mode of learning which may best be described as coach education, but we know enough to understand that coach education in this respect is not the only way that coaches learn and grow and so become more expert at what they do. It would therefore be fair to argue that there is enough knowledge to suggest that coaches also learn through engaging in a variety of less formal, less structured and less mediated forms of learning. A review of coach learning for example commissioned by sports coach UK makes this point very clearly. The report highlights the role of activities, classified as informal and nonformal, in contributing to the learning process coaches are engaged in. Activities such as mentoring, experiential learning, reflection, CPD workshops and peer to peer interaction are all valuable forms of learning which contribute significantly to a coaches uneven and personal journey towards increasing expertise. Those forms of learning then that lie outside the formal and structured coach education system can best be described as coach development. In this way the term coach development can be used to describe those activities that contribute to coach learning but which do not take on the formalised characteristics of what has been defined as coach education. This helps to demarcate different types of learning activities into two essentially contrasting

forms of learning, coach education and coach development, with a clearer understanding as to what type of learning activities each term refers to. This can be represented in the simple diagram below.

Learning Activities

Coach Education Formal, structured and significantly mediated activities that essentially assess the capability of a coach.

Coach Development Less formal and structured learning activities that inform in many different ways the development of a coach.

The representation of the relationship between Coach Education and Coach Development in this diagram merely helps to position the difference between the two. It does not convey the relative importance of the activities in respect to the impact on coaching practice, behaviour and expertise that they have, or the process of learning through which coaches learn and make progress and how, as part of this process, they engage in different forms of learning. So two further diagrams might help to conceptualise these issues further.

Quantifying the Relationship Between Coach Education and Coach Development

Coach Education

Coach Development

The diagram above might be viewed by some as controversial because it signifies that coach development activities have a greater impact on coaching practice and behaviour than coach education. Given the evidence though the representation depicted in the diagram seems a fair reflection of what is known at present in so far as coaches seem to learn more and become better more expert coaches through informal less structured development activities than formal structured coach education activities. That is not to say that coach education is unimportant, it is, rather coach development, or what is

being defined here as coach development, contributes to the learning journey of a coach and hence their expertise more so than the education they receive through a typical NGB qualification. One conclusion to be drawn from this is the relative scale of resources that has tended to be invested into coach education as opposed to coach development. Only recently has significant resource been invested into coach development activities, whereas quite significant sums, and rightly so, have been invested into a system of coach education, it could be argued that at the very least there now needs to be a re-balancing of where resources are invested. Furthermore, any credible and efficient coaching system needs to recognise and reflect the reality of the learning process that coaches pass through and ensure that the system caters for both education and development opportunities. In this way an efficient and effective coaching system should have in place a qualification structure that ensures the assessment of coaches whilst at the same time recognises the myriad developmental opportunities that equally support the learning process coaches engage in. This then leads onto another diagram that tries to capture the relationship between coach education and coach development over time.

Expertise and standard of practice.

Coach Development

Coach Education

Time

This diagram can help to outline a number of issues relevant to the process of coach learning: 1) The progress towards coaching expertise, learning and the positive impact on coaching practice and behaviour is not a consequence of moving from one coaching qualification to another, often as quickly as possible. Rather the process of becoming a better coach

involves being engaged in a wide range of learning activities, some formal, but many informal, it involves engaging in forms of coach EDUCATION and coach DEVELOPMENT. 2) A significant amount of learning and progress takes place BETWEEN the levels of coach education. As a highly respected individual with considerable experience of developing coaches has suggested the magic happens between the levels! In this sense the argument that coaches learn more as a consequence of developmental and less formal activities would give weight to the importance of ensuring that not only does a coaching system develop a sound qualification pathway but also an effective coach development programme needs to be in place as well. 3) Coaches undertake the journey towards becoming better and more expert coaches in varying differing ways, at different rates of development that are not uni-linear, that is sometimes progress can be quicker than at other times. 4) Coaches never stop learning, the Level 4 qualification is a not a ceiling to progress or a definition in itself of being an expert coach. Rather level 4 just represents another staging post, another level of capability. Indeed those qualified at level 4 may be in the process of remaking their own expertise as they experience and move into different coaching contexts and different coaching roles.

The purpose of this analysis has been to try and offer a set of reasons as to why we should be more careful and precise in the way that we use the terms coach education and coach development. Furthermore by developing a better and more effective sense of conceptual clarity between these terms it may be possible to better describe and more accurately model the process of coach learning. It may indeed be possible to convey a better model than those that dominate current thinking. This is important because we need to convey to coaches a clearer and more accurate understanding of how they learn, how they will become better coaches and how the journey to expertise is constantly made and remade and always in a state of becoming. If we can get the message across to coaches that becoming a better coach does not mean moving from one qualification to the next in the shortest possible time, then at least that might mark some kind of progress. Indeed a mature and effective coaching system should unite forms of coach education and coach development into a clear and transparent structure that is clear to coaches, clearly signposts their route to becoming better more expert coaches and caters for every coach in the system.

Turner, D. Nelson,L. Potrac, P. (2012) The Journey is the Destination: Reconsidering the Expert Sports Coach. Quest, 64:4 313-325