Coaching Development | Heidi Thibert

Education Comes Before Development

BY HEIDI DELIO THIBERT, MFS, MM, MC, PSA SENIOR DIRECTOR OF COACHING DEVELOPMENT

What exactly is the difference between ‘Coach Education’ and ‘Coach Development’? Both are terms that occupy a significant position within the vocabulary of the coaching industry. Truthfully, the two terms are used interchangeably without much thought given to a more precise understanding of the learning activities they describe. To be accurate though, they refer to different activities and different processes, and when combined effectively, are both factors in the learning process for coaches. You might even say they “Team-Teach”.

I began employment with the PSA in 2009, and over the past decade, the level of knowledge and understanding of experts in the field regarding how sports coaches develop their practice and become more expert has evolved significantly. It has become increasingly evident that coaches learn through engaging in a wide range of opportunities, by reflecting on their own practice and experience, and that the pace and trajectory of learning is specific to each individual coach.

Coach education experts Turner, Nelson and Potrac (2012) indicate the process of becoming an expert coach is a continuous journey of learning in which expertise is constantly made and remade as coaches experience different issues and different contexts. Expertise in this sense is always in the making, contingent on the coaching context and not necessarily a linear process that progresses through neatly identified stages of development. This is not unlike the journey that our skaters experience.

“Coach Education” is characterized by a formal and structured approach to learning. Typically, there is an approved curriculum designed, developed, and delivered by recognized organizations through a course of learning. It may involve a form of assessment designed to ascertain the coach competency and capability.

However, just as our skaters learn by experiencing a skill (think of a jump harness), coach education is not the only way that coaches learn and grow. Further, there is knowledge to suggest that coaches also learn through engaging in a variety of less formal, less structured, and less mediated forms of learning. This is best described as the “untaught lessons”.

Formats of learning that lie outside the formal and structured coach education system can best be described as “Coach Development”. Extended learning opportunities such as mentoring, experiential learning, reflection, interactive workshops, and peer to peer insightful interface are all tangible forms of learning which significantly contribute to a coach’s serrated individual journey towards enhanced expertise.

It seems clear that an efficient coaching system recognizes and reflects these two components and ensures that the system provides both education and development opportunities for coaches. This diagram captures the “coaching journey” in terms of the relationship between coach education and coach development over time.

Learning Opportunities

Coach education is more formal, structured learning activites designed to increase the capability of a coach.

Coach development is less formal and less structured learning activities that contribute to the coach's growth.

Education comes before development and lends some relevant thoughts to the process of improved coaching.

1) Just as rushing through the moves in the field tests does not guarantee enhanced skating skills, the “coaching journey” does not occur simply by moving from one coaching qualification to another as quickly as possible. Rather, the route of becoming a more effective coach involves participating in a wide range of learning activities, some formal and some informal.

2) Learning is not linear. Increased coaching understanding often happens between the levels of coach education. One highly respected individual with considerable experience of developing coaches has suggested ‘the magic happens between the levels’! Think of how many times your skaters have a lesson on a coveted jump, but they land it for the first time 15 minutes after the lesson is over or on the next session.

3) Coaches progress toward better coaching in variable ways, at different rates, at different times in their lives and their careers. Life happens. Our learning reflects the time, energy, and effort available to us to invest in it, and that is not a constant over time.

4) Coaches who never stop learning are “Continuous Learning Champions”. Think of how we see Olympic coaches such as Frank Carroll, Tammy Gambill, Christy Krall, and Tom Zakrajsek at PSA Summits (conferences in the past) sitting alongside freshman coaches- soaking it all in.

In my staff role as PSA Senior Director of Coaching Development, I’m enthusiastically involved in the PSA endeavor to unite these two formats of coach education and coach development into pathway for all our members at all levels to enable them to coach more effectively and efficiently.

Reference: Turner, D. Nelson, L. Potrac, P. (2012) The Journey is the Destination: Reconsidering the Expert Sports Coach. Quest, 64:4 313325. Retrieved from https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publications/the-journey-is-the-destination-reconsidering-expertise-in-coaching