Carefully supporting autonomy – learning coaching lessons and advancing theory from women’s netball in England

Abstract

Back to Netball (BTN) is an initiative that encourages women, whose engagement has lapsed, to return to regular Netball participation. This study explores what aspects of coaching practice within BTN are perceived to be effective. A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 28 BTN participants and 6 coaches was undertaken. Analysis identified four pertinent themes; (1) participants personalising sporting experiences through choice, (2) coaches facilitating and / or directing participants to relevant opportunities, (3) critical considerations of autonomy; a need for balance, (4) caring as a coaching ethic. The subsequent discussion considers autonomy and care as two relevant theoretical explanations. Within the discussion, it is posited that autonomy supportive behaviours and caring relationships may be symbiotic features of successful coaching. A novel interdisciplinary theoretical contribution is therefore made by connecting Self Determination Theory with the burgeoning recognition of coaching as a caring practice.

Keywords:

• Coaching
• netball
• care
• Self-determination theory
• autonomy

Notes

1. Sports Coach UK (2015) estimate that there are 1.1 million regular coaches in the UK and given that 76% of these are voluntary it is likely that a significant number work in community settings such as local sports clubs, schools and leisure centres.

2. For international readers, England Netball are the governing body for Netball in the UK and the UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC) is somewhat akin to an accreditation or quality mark for their coach education programmes.

3. N.B. codes are “short phrases that symbolically assign a summative, salient, essence capturing, and /or evocative attribute for a portion of language based or visual data” (Saldaña, 2013, p. 3).

4. Themes as oppose to codes are a phrase or sentence describing more subtle and tacit processes (Saldaña, 2013, p. 14).

5. For clarity, readers are reminded that only three participants recounted these instances. This data also does not provide evidence that these coaches were permissive or laissez faire and further investigation is required to explore this.

6. We are mindful that by drawing on literature from a range of disciplines that the discussion could be critiqued for a lack of depth from any one perspective. That said we feel the interdisciplinary perspective adds value by raising issues for future exploration.