Learning in Sports Coaching: Theory and Application

The facilitation of learning is a central feature of coaches’ and coach educators’ work. Coaching students and practitioners are, as a result, being expected to give increasing levels of thought towards how they might help to develop the knowledge and practical skills of others. Learning in Sports Coaching provides a comprehensive introduction to a diverse range of classic, critical, and contemporary theories of learning, education, and social interaction and their potential application to sports coaching. Each chapter is broadly divided into two sections. The first section introduces a key thinker and the fundamental tenets of his or her scholarly endeavours and theorising. The second considers how the theorist’s work might influence how we understand and attempt to promote learning in coaching and coach education settings. By design this book seeks to promote theoretical connoisseurship and to encourage its readers to reflect critically on their beliefs about learning and its facilitation. This is an essential text for any pedagogical course taken as part of a degree programme in sports coaching or coach education.

Lee Nelson is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching at Edge Hill University and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hull, UK. His research and teaching interests include micro-politics, emotions, and pedagogy in coaching and coach education contexts. Lee was the lead editor for the recent title Research Methods in Sports Coaching (Routledge).

Ryan Groom is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching and Program Director for the MA/MSc Exercise and Sports degrees at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. A lead tutor on the MA Coaching Studies degree, his main teaching and research interests focus on the use of qualitative research methodologies and social theory to explore power, identity, education and interaction. Ryan was a co-editor for the title Research Methods in Sports Coaching (Routledge).

Paul Potrac is a Professor of Sports Coaching at Edge Hill University and an Honorary Professor at the University of Hull, UK. His research and teaching interests focus on exploring the social complexity of sports coaching and coach education, with a particular emphasis on the political and emotional nature of practice. Paul has led and contributed to the completion of a number of book projects including Research Methods in Sports Coaching, The Sociology of Sports Coaching, Understanding Sports Coaching, the Routledge Handbook of Sports Coaching, and Sports Coaching Cultures (all published by Routledge).