University of Canterbury, School of Sport and Physical Education
Abstract
Game Sense was introduced to Australian tennis during Australian Sports Commission (ASC) national workshops in 1996, prompting tennis coach education providers to emphasise the approach, and its embrace of increased player involvement in the coaching process, in formal coach accreditation literature. This research involving 208 junior development and club professional coaches in self-assessment of their teaching styles, provides insight into the penetration into the everyday coaching practice of one of the central pedagogical tenets of the Game Sense approach – the use of well-considered coach questions to guide the development of players’ technical and tactical game development. Since the ASC workshops in 1996, until this research there has been no assessment of the uptake of the Game Sense approach in Australian tennis. The pedagogical practice of coach-led questions in the Game Sense approach has been referred to as a form of guided discovery. This research used Mosston and Ashworth’s Spectrum of Teaching Styles (2008) (The Spectrum) as a tool through which to investigate the coaching styles of Australian junior tennis coaches, revealing coaches self-identified alignment with the guided discovery practice of coach-led questions (Mosston’s Guided Discovery-Style F). The research found that a practice style (Mosston’s Practice Style-B) was the pedagogical style used most often by the respondents, followed by a more directive or command style (Mosston’s Command Style-A). Guided discovery (Mosston’s Guided Discovery-Style F) was the third most commonly adopted pedagogical practice
