Principles of Good Assessment Practice in Coach Education: An Initial Proposal

Abstract

Despite its obvious importance, we argue that assessment as a feature of coach education programmes has been overlooked in the peer-reviewed published literature. As a result, it is suggested that approaches to assessing sport coaches within coach education programmes can sometimes be ill considered and lead to suboptimal experiences for multiple stakeholders. To address this problem situation, we tentatively propose five interconnected principles of assessment in the first section of this article. These include the integration of teaching, learning, and assessment; assessment as a means of developing metacognitive skills; authentic/practice-based assessment; clearly and transparently foregrounding success criteria; and collaboration within assessment activities. By considering these principles, we suggest that there is much to be gained by the coach education community. In the second section, we showcase how these principles have been adopted within a football coach education programme in Flanders (Belgium). With this example, we explain why assessment became a central concern of the organisation and how they developed an effective assessment approach. Finally, we invite considered discussion and comments on our paper, with a view to starting a conversation in an area that is scarcely spoken about.

Developing Critical Reflection Skills in a Formal Coach Education Program

“…This is largely attempted through the development of interpersonal and professional knowledge and promoting effective and ethical coach behaviours. However, an emerging body of work has begun to focus on the extent to which formal coach education can contribute to the development of more skilled learners with positive attitudes toward learning (McCarthy, 2022, McCarthy et al, 2021aMcCarthy et al, 2021b;Stoszkowski & Collins, 2021;. We believe that this study contributes to those arguments made within the cited research.…”

“…Second, a clear framework (including materials and activities) on how to deliberately promote, encourage, and assess critical reflection skills is required. Sharing this framework with coaches in advance and being clear about intentions is consistent with approaches to formal coach education which contribute to coach learning (McCarthy, 2022, McCarthy et al, 2021aMcCarthy et al, 2021b). Indeed, specific to the development of critical reflection skills, Fisher (2003) argues: ...it is possible for students in the social sciences to improve their capacities for critical reflection.…”

“…This signifies a novel approach for VTS and represents a response to contemporary coach assessment research (McCarthy, 2022;McCarthy et al, 2021a;McCarthy et al, 2021b;Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet, 2019).…”

University-Based Coach Education: The E-Portfolio as a Formative Assessment Tool of Student-Coaches’ Learning

“…This is consistent with the concept of 'on display' assessment, used by Carless (2015). It is already noted how collaboration is an integral feature of learning-oriented assessment (McCarthy, Vangrunderbeek, et al, 2021).…”

Exploring football coaches’ views on coach education, role, and practice design: An Australian perspective

“…Sub-theme 2.1: Coaching is multifaceted. A football coach's roles and responsibilities are vast in both scale and scope [56]. Because of the multifaceted nature of coaching, coaches are frequently required to develop knowledge and expertise in a variety of fields, which can often be found outside their sport [33].…”