Coaches' experiences of formal coach education: a critical sociological investigation

Abstract

According to recent academic reviews, formal coach education courses are rarely considered important or useful events in a broader coach learning process. At present, there is insufficient research to define the nature and extent of this problem which is likely to become more important under the prevailing governing rationalities of modernisation and professional accreditation. The purpose of this paper, therefore, was to explore coaches' experiences of formal coach education to determine the extent to which they are considered useless and to describe their nature. Neo-Foucauldian concepts, specifically 'governmentality' and 'power/knowledge', were drawn on to interpret data from semi-structured interviews with 12 coaches from a range of sports. The findings suggest that, where courses were governed by prescriptive and rigid rationalities, coaches found them useless; whereas, open and discursive courses, though in the minority, were considered more useful. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.