Grappling with ambiguity and contradiction: an examination of the role of reflexivity in coach education research

Abstract

In this article, I analyse the complex process of developing a beginner coach education programme for ultimate Frisbee (ultimate) in collaboration with New Zealand Ultimate and volunteer coaches within New Zealand’s ultimate community. I construct a reflexive account of this participatory action research project, which sought to generate pedagogically informed coach education that would benefit New Zealand’s ultimate community and meet Sport New Zealand’s coaching policies. I focus on particular contextual challenges and opportunities, such as ultimate’s lack of resourcing, and SportNZ’s Coach Development Framework, and, in a reflexive manner, consider how my biography impacted this project.

Keywords:

• Coach education
• coach development
• Ultimate Frisbee
• coaching pedagogy
• reflexivity

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the constructive feedback provided by Associate Professor Clive Pope and the two anonymous reviewers on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Many members of the Ultimate community pride themselves on Ultimate being an inclusive, diverse sport (Crocket, 2016b; Thornton, 2004). However, despite such aspirations a range of inequities are evident within the sport and while, for instance, some men are beginning to explicitly acknowledge their unearned privileges within the game (e.g. Weisbrod, 2016), this is a slow-moving, non-linear process.