Enriching the educational validity of decision-making evaluation in adventure sports coaching

ABSTRACT

Adventure sports coaches must make sound judgements and effective decisions to ensure they can manage the significant risks present in an operating environment that is hyper-dynamic and has significant environmental complexity (Collins & Collins, 2013). High-level stakeholders in adventure sports require coaches demonstrate competency to fulfill their responsibilities to look after their clients. Most adventure sports qualifications identify the importance of decision making, however, by using competence-oriented syllabi they may not provide effective methods to evaluate a prospective adventure sport coach’s decision making. This paper identifies the need for expertise-oriented evaluation of decision making and explores decision support tools and educational validity theories in the evaluation process. It also considers how Collins and Collins’ (2021) Big 5 style approach represents an exemplar decision support tool and may provide educational assessment validity, so presenting a sound methodology for coach educators to evaluate the quality of an adventure sports coaches’ decision making.

KEYWORDS:

• competency
• expertise
• assessment
• coach education
• decision-making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason J. Taylor

Jason J. Taylor is an adventure sports coach and director of Tirio Cyf, he has just completed a Professional master’s degree in Elite Performance Coaching with the University of Central Lancashire and is currently undertaking a PhD at Moray House School of Education and Sport at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include decision making in complex environments, its evaluation, coach development and assessment processes.

Robin D. Taylor

Dr. Robin D. Taylor is an Assistant Professor in Elite Performance at Dublin City University. His research interests include talent development, the role of family in development, and coach development.

Dave Collins

Dave Collins is a professorial fellow at The University of Edinburgh and director of Grey Matters Performance. His research interests include performer and coach development, expertise, and the promotion of peak performance.