An investigation of professional top-level youth football coaches’ questioning practice

To position learners as more central components in the coaching process, scholars suggested that coaches should employ a questioning approach, which may lead to the development of desirable learner outcomes (i.e. increased problem solving and decision-making skills). Studies, however, indicate that coaches rarely employ questions within their practice. When questions are asked, these questions rarely move beyond lower-order or ‘fact seeking’ enquiries. While this research provides information concerning the frequency and in some cases, the type of questions coaches asks, it fails to report the more discursive nature of coaches’ questioning approaches. In order to address such limitations, the purpose of this study was to investigate coach questioning practices (CQPs). We recorded the practices of five academy youth level football coaches’ and subjected the data to conversational analysis (CA), This enabled the analysis of interaction between coach and player(s). Findings revealed that CQPs, regardless of coach or context followed similar discursive patterns. In particular, three themes presented themselves in each CQP: (1) coaches’ requirements for an immediate player response, (2) leading questions for a desired response, (3) monologist nature of coach/player interaction. This showed that the coach positioned themselves as the gatekeeper of knowledge and learners as passive recipients. This reinforces the messages from previous work that has suggested coaches’ ideologies inform their practice, and are stable structures that are difficult to change. We concur with other researchers that there is a need for further investigation in this area to better understand how dominant discourse can be challenged

Re-visiting systematic observation: A pedagogical tool to support coach learning and development

Systematic observation has been one of the most employed data collection methods in sports coaching literature. Initial work, originally undertaken in the 1970’s, and gaining traction in the 80’s and 90’s looked to predominately offer descriptions of coaches’ behaviour. While this research continues to offer a significant contribution to the fields understanding of what coaches do during practice, systematic observation used only in this way has unfulfilled potential. The premise of this paper is to consider systematic observation as a coach development tool – a precedent which has been set in the literature. The arguments made are based on an alternative way of thinking about systematic observation, as a pedagogical tool that supports coaches in better understanding themselves and their pedagogical practice. Principles of dialogic pedagogy are used as the basis of our argument whereby ‘researchers’ and ‘coaches’ work collaboratively to co-construct knowledge and support coach reflection, and ultimately develop coaches’ practice.</p

An investigation of high-performance team sport coaches’ planning practices

The aim of this study was to provide a rich description of team sport coaches’ planning practices and to evaluate these practices in light of the Game-Based Approach literature and Complex Learning Theory. Twelve Gaelic football coaches operating in a high-performance setting were recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Coaches prepared two coaching session plans used as prompts within the inter-view. An iterative thematic analysis developed three major themes: (1) practice activity design, (2) sequencing of practice session content, and (3) contextual factors influencing planning. Despite strong indications of coach engagement with pedagogy in aspects of their session planning, the findings also revealed missed opportunities, with coaches failing to provide explicit learning intentions for session plans, inattention to session sequencing, and limited small-sided game designs. Given these missed opportunities, this paper illustrates how coaches can engage with research and theory to elevate the quality of their planning of coaching sessions

Descriptive statistics and inter-group analysis of each dependent variable in pre-test.

<p>Descriptive statistics and inter-group analysis of each dependent variable in pre-test.</p

Season plan for the hybrid unit, Sport Education–Teaching Games for Understanding.

<p>Season plan for the hybrid unit, Sport Education–Teaching Games for Understanding.</p

Timeline of the study.

<p>Timeline of the study.</p

Descriptive statistics and inter-group analysis for both conditions of each dependent variable.

<p>Descriptive statistics and inter-group analysis for both conditions of each dependent variable.</p

Peptides in Bronchoalveolar Lavage in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

<div><p>Background</p><p>Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous disease with a significant public health burden. Currently there is no biomarker that identifies those at risk of developing COPD, progression of disease or disease phenotypes. We performed metabolomic profiling of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from COPD patients to determine if metabolites correlated with clinical measurements such as lung function, functional status and degree of emphysema.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Metabolomic components of BALF from 59 subjects with COPD and 20 healthy controls were separated by reversed-phase UPLC and analyzed by ESI-ToF mass spectrometry. We used univariate analysis and multiple regression models to investigate associations between metabolomic features and various clinical variables, such as lung function, functional status as measured by the St. George Respiratory Quotient Score and emphysema as measured by the CT density mask score.</p><p>Results</p><p>We identified over 3900 features by mass spectrometry, many consistent with peptides. Subjects with severe COPD had increased concentration of peptides compared to controls (p < 9.526e-05). The peptide concentration correlated with spirometry, specifically pulmonary function tests associated with airflow obstruction. There was no correlation with CT density, i.e. emphysema, or functional status.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>Metabolomic profiling of BALF in COPD patients demonstrated a significant increase in peptides compared to healthy controls that associated strongly to lung function, but not emphysema or functional status.</p></div

Instructional checklist.

<p>Instructional checklist.</p

Histogram of <i>p-</i>values.

<p>A histogram displaying the distribution of <i>p</i>-values for jointly testing for an association between the clinical variables used to assess lung function and the levels of the analytes in the peptide profile. The large number of small <i>p</i>-values indicates that there is an association between the clinical data set and the peptide analytes in BALF.</p