Swedish elite athletics coaches’ professional development in practices of organized coaches’ meetings

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate how elite coaches reflect on their practice and interact with each other, as part of their informal professional development. We use observations of 14 coach meetings, over a period of two years, where coaches came together to share their experiences of coaching elite athletics, and to discuss ways for continuous professional development. Through an action research approach, data collected included notes and audio-recorded conversations. The theory of practice architectures was employed as a theoretical tool to frame the analysis of the data in order to understand the meeting practices and how these practices were enabled and constrained. The research revealed how conversations led to awareness, which became turning points for new practices. Specifically, the coaches became aware of the importance of belonging to a community, their lack of knowledge and understanding of inequality, and the complexity of coaching. The meetings, as forums for dialogic practice, were enabled by open-minded collaboration, a willingness to share experiences, and a mutual understanding of the coaching context, but they were also constrained by the structures of coaches’ athletics clubs and federations, that do not fully support coaches’ meetings as an informal educational practice for professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• Athletics
• coaching
• elite sport
• informal learning
• professional practice
• the theory of practice architectures

Acknowledgments

We especially thank the coaches who participated in the study, and are grateful to the GAF for its support. We thank the reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Swedish athletics has two competition seasons, one is indoor during winter and the other one is outdoor during summer.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Dohlsten

John Dohlstenis a Ph.D. at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has conducted research on coaching and participation in youth sport. His current research focus on sustainability from the perspective of both top-level coaches and elite athletes.

Karin Rönnerman

Karin Rönnerman is a professor Emerita in Education at the University of Gothenburg. Her research is in the field of action research connected to professional learning and development of practices through middle leading. In her research the theory of practice architecture is used both for analysing and for understanding changes of practices.

Eva-Carin Lindgren

Eva-Carin Lindgren is a professor at School of Social & Health Sciences, Halmstad University, Sweden. She has conducted both qualitative and intervention studies in the areas of health promotion (physical activity, body and empowerment) in school settings and sports in children and youths. Her current research interests focus on how coaches construct children’s team sports, how coaches maximise participation in youth sport, and how top-level coaches construct sustainable sport for elite athletes. She adopts perspectives of gender, intersectionality and health promotion.