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