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Article Excerpt
The study followed a four-phase design. In Phase I an exhaustive search was conducted for all English language coaching research published in journals from 1970 to 2001. In Phase II, copies of the research were obtained. An expert panel conducted a manual search and a review in Phase III to address validity. Analysis of the research was completed in Phase IV (Culver, Gilbert, & Trudel, 2003; Silverman & Skonie, 1997). Over 1,100 articles were reviewed, and 610 met the inclusion criteria. Selected findings include: (a) a relatively low mean spread across many journals, (b) a focus on coaching behavior using quantitative methodologies, and (c) a primary emphasis on team sports in school contexts.
Key words: methods, pedagogy, review, sport
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The development of any profession relies on research, training programs and innovations in practice. These endeavors, however, depend on knowledge of the current state of the field. Because the information is spread through various publication outlets (articles, handbooks, books, proceedings, theses, and dissertations), it can be difficult for a researcher or practitioner to stay current and keep track of the evolving database. Therefore, a summary of that information is regularly needed (Hofmann, 2001). There are two common types of information summaries. Silverman and Skonie (1997) differentiated an analysis of published research and a literature review by stating that analyses "are different from literature reviews in that they categorize research instead of synthesizing the results" (p. 300). Examples of both summary types can be found in sport pedagogy. Literature reviews have been conducted on teaching (Nixon & Locke, 1973; Silverman, 1991), time use (Metzler, 1989), behavior analysis (Ward & Barrett, 2002), and teacher education (Bain, 1990; Locke, 1984), while analyses of published research have been done on teaching (Pieron, 1986; Silverman & Skonie, 1997).
Although similarities exist between teaching in physical education and sport coaching (Drewe, 2000), the differences are often perceived as sufficient to exclude anything related to coaching in literature reviews and analysis of published research in sport pedagogy (Silverman & Skonie, 1997; Ward & Barrett, 2002). Despite a growing body of scientific literature on coaching, few attempts have been made to summarize the information (Hastie, 1992), and the summaries are usually limited in the period covered (Douge & Hastie, 1993; Tinning, 2001) or to coaching behavior (Kahan, 1999; Trudel & Gilbert, 1995), or both.
The absence of literature reviews and analyses of published research on coaching seriously limits the ability of (a) researchers to set research agendas and situate their work in the larger context of coaching science, (b) coaches to access and realize the potential of coaching research, and (c) coach educators to integrate the full scope of coaching research into coach education programs. Without a reliable and systematic analysis of the wealth of research on coaching, the information remains disconnected and distant from most of the coaching community. As a result, coaching science has been criticized for its lack of both organization (Cote, Salmela, Trudel, Baria, & Russell, 1995; Hastie, 1992; Potrac, Brewer, Jones, Armour, & Hoff, 2000) and impact on coaching practice (Abraham & Collins, 1998; Lyle, 2002).
Recent developments in sport and coaching also support the need for the present study. Each year, more and more children participate in organized sport around the world (De Knopp, Engstrom, Skirstad, & Weiss, 1996). For example, the latest report on high school sport participation in the United States shows record participation for the fifth consecutive year (National Federation of State High School Associations [NFSHSA], 2003). An increase in the number of coaches has accompanied the sport participation explosion. It is estimated that nearly 800,000 adults serve as coaches in the U.S. school system alone (NFSHSA, n.d.). Additionally, there is an increased global recognition that coaching and coach education needs to be grounded firmly in coaching science (De Knopp et al., 1996; Lyle, 2002). Coach education has grown to the point that an International Council for Coach Education (ICCE) now promotes coaching and coach education at all levels of sport around the world. The ICCE aspires to accomplish this mission by creating a global community of coaching practice comprising organizations and individuals responsible for coach education and coaching. The ICCE's membership includes national organizations providing coach education in 21 countries (www.icce.ws).
The purpose of the current study was to analyze published research on coaching science, which Haag (1994) conceptually defined as a composition of theory fields (e.g., sport psychology, sport pedagogy, sport biomechanics, sport medicine) linked to a so-called mother science (e.g., pedagogy, psychology). These theory fields are used to understand and examine specific subtopics within sport, which are referred to as theme fields. One such theme field is coaching science, which comprises research on the coaching, learning, and instructional processes as directed by coaches. However, an analysis of research on coaching should also include other aspects, such as coach characteristics and cognitions, so that "researchers could better understand why teachers [coaches] do what they do when interacting with students [athletes]" (Dodds & Placek, 1991, p. 367). Therefore, the questions addressed in the current study were:
1. How many research studies have been published on coaching science, what is their publication rate, and what journals are used?
2. What coaching focus areas have been studied? Coaching focus was defined as the aspect(s) of coaching examined in the research study, as stated in the article title and purpose statement.
3. What general research methodologies and methods of data collection are used?
4. What types of research participants are included?
5. What sports and sporting contexts are studied?
Method
The research design was based on a similar analysis of research on teaching in physical education (Silverman & Skonie, 1997) and comprised four phases. In Phase I an exhaustive search, using computerized databases and encyclopedias, was conducted for all English language coaching research (reports of original data) published in journals from 1970 to 2001. The 1970 starting point was selected based on background reading of the literature and indications that much of coaching science can be traced to the early 1970s (Abraham & Collins, 1998; Kahan, 1999; Trudel & Gilbert, 1995).
The focus of this project was on research published in journals, because it represents "a record of an area's scholarship and provides a foundation to understand research trends" (Silverman & Skonie, 1997, p. 300). Furthermore, journals "have a lot to do with establishing what is considered important enough to talk about in educational circles, as well as influencing how education gets talked about by professional educators" (Marshall & Barritt, 1990, p. 590). We acknowledge that other sources (e.g., dissertations, books, conference proceedings) exist and should not be overlooked when seeking to understand, or study, coaching and the coaching process (Trudel & Gilbert, 1995). However, master's theses and doctoral dissertations are not easily accessible, and a rigorous review process is not always required for books. Also, an analysis of published research on a similar topic (teaching in physical education) has shown that proceedings play only a small role in disseminating research (Silverman & Skonie, 1997).
The search was delimited to English language research because, this was the primary language the research team could interpret and analyze. We are aware that considerable research on coaching exists in other languages. For example, a search on the SportDiscus reference database, using the term "coach," for the years 1970-2001 published in Chinese, French, German, and Spanish showed over 550 articles, although it is not evident how many of these are research articles. The computerized search was performed on the ERIC, PsychINFO, and SportDiscus databases using the following search criteria: coach as the keyword, empirical study, journal article, 1970-2001, and English language. In addition to the computerized database search, all issues of The Physical Education Index (1978-2001) were manually reviewed. Other encyclopedias that were reviewed but did not provide any substantial new information included Completed Research in Health, Physical...
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