In the previous chapter the issues in model building were explored and an overview of several early examples of models ‘of’ and ‘for’ the coaching process illustrated their inherent limitations. This chapter consists of an updated version of a proposed model for sport coaching, which is intended to act as a catalyst to further exploration of model building in this academic field of study. The proposed model both builds on the conceptual framework elaborated thus far, and is also a key part of the complete framework. The context and intentions are important. It is necessary to emphasise strongly that, as a model ‘for’ coaching, it is a template to be used to compare to practice and to stimulate research, and thereby to contribute to a gradual refining of our understanding of sport coaching. We acknowledge that the model has many of the weaknesses of model building already described. Nevertheless, by proposing a more detailed account of how coaches operationalise their coaching, it is intended to be more comprehensive and detailed than previous attempts.
Having acknowledged these limitations, it is necessary to describe the steps taken to obviate these as much as possible. Our purpose in the first part of this chapter is to present an ideal model of the coaching process. The use of the ideal model is a feature of the work of seminal sociologist Max Weber (Albrow 1990). It can be argued that practice models developed from aggregating the behaviour of many examples of that practice will provide a cumulative overview of the phenomenon but will have limited value for describing, or perhaps understanding, the practice of the range of individuals who make up that population. Such a model describes the behaviour and practice of an ‘average’ coach – one who does not actually exist. Better therefore to work with case histories or to construct an ideal model against which empirical descriptions of practice can be compared, based on the action that would be taken in the rational and informed pursuit of appropriate objectives in constraint-free conditions. It is very important to stress that the model is not intended as a coach development tool – that is, as a template for practice. It is a catalyst for researchers and should be continually refined as research evidence gradually increases our understanding of the process.
■The ideal model is based on the question ‘What would the rational coach do if there were no contextual limitations?’. The researcher may then demonstrate how the reality of practice requires the coach to adapt the process (and perhaps expectations) in certain sets of circumstances.
■Previous criticism of the model stresses its emphasis on a systematic linear approach, being too structured, and, since it cannot hope to account for all contextual eventualities, failing to account for the dynamics and untidiness of real practice. This fails to understand the nature of the model; it is a starting point against which the uncertainty and complexity of practice can be compared.
■The issue is one of operationalisation. ‘Ideal’ models are not ‘put into practice’ – this is not their purpose. It is the operationalisation of practice that the researcher is invited to establish. You will recall that we have stated many times that coaching can only be understood in the particular – there is limited value in generalising across contexts. This model is intended to provide a common language and set of descriptors against which the implications of the particular can be evaluated.
■It is necessary to identify a further and very important aspect of operationalisation. How does the coach actually carry out the coaching process? For the moment we might loosely term this the coach’s expertise. The knowledge, skills and other features of expertise are brought to bear by the coach in order to bring the process to life. How the coach does this is part of the model and can be used as a framework against which an emerging appreciation of the coach’s expertise can be compared. We devoted an earlier chapter to a conceptualisation of the coach’s expertise.
■We must also acknowledge that we have made much of the domain-specific nature of the coaching process. This model assumes a sufficiency of time and frequency of interaction, along with a stable relationship and the primacy of improved competition performance, and might therefore be thought of as performance coaching.
There is no doubt that the complexity, dynamic flow and context-dependent nature of the coaching process has been attested to by sport coaching academics. We can only agree that there is great difficulty in describing, conceptualising and portraying the actuality of practice. However, we hold to the view that too many writers have used this conceptualisation of coaching to stress the difficulties of both practice and description, without identifying the solutions. As in a previous paper (Lyle 2007), we emphasise our experience of coaching:
KEY CONCEPT
‘Ideal’ models are not ‘put into practice’ and are not coach development tools. They are intended to stimulate research and to provide a conceptual starting point against which the reality and particularity of coaching practice and the essence of coaching expertise can be compared.
■Coaches have strategies for coping with complexity and uncertainty.
■Much of the process can be routinised, and coping strategies employed when a threshold of problem severity is breached.
■Coaches are able to maintain a focus on the instrumentality of the coaching process. This is goal/outcome driven and its stability is maintained by the planning process.
■Performance coaching has an interpersonal dimension that exists within, and is given meaning by, the specifics of the athlete/team goals and the social/organisational context.
■Although illustrated well in the dynamic interaction of team sports, there are many sports in which the coaching process can be characterised (for the most part) by a more measured and controlled environment.
As stated above, it is entirely accepted that it is not possible to construct (partly because of the problem of illustration) a model that represents all of coaching practice: ‘a singular all-encompassing model may not be possible’ (Cushion 2007, p. 395). The issues of domain specificity, particularity, context dependency and continuity act as barriers for the model builder and illustrator. This is in addition to the practical problems of illustrating in two dimensions, representing cyclical processes and having the capacity to represent the dimensions of effect and causality in the relationships between the different parts of the model. The model builder rarely addresses this last challenge; what would be the impact of varying levels/degrees of application by any one factor? This can be interpreted as the ‘what-if’ question: ‘What will happen to the coaching intervention if it is changed/delivered in this way?’. (There is a research corollary to this: What works best in given circumstances and goals?)
It is not the coaching process that is problematic; that is, the intentions and the principles/concepts/constructs behind it. It is the reality of application. We must point out, however, that academics who attempt to describe the former are not unaware of the latter! The conceptual or ideal model is a baseline statement that may be used as a reference point for the variability of actual practice. We also pointed out earlier that we discern two misrepresentations of the coaching process:
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