ABSTRACT

The design and delivery of formal coach education and learning opportunities appear to be permeated by taken-for-granted discourses. These discourses exercise a systemised influence on the social construction of coaches’ professional knowledge, with potentially problematic consequences. Adopting a discursive methodology using discourse analysis, this study explored the ways in which facilitators and coaches in a high-performance coach education programme constructed coach learning. Data were collected over a two-year period using on-course participant observation (10 days), interviews with coaches and course facilitators (n = 29), and document analysis. Findings indicated a dominant discourse of ‘learning’ as a linear, mechanistic and unproblematic process occurring independently of context, and of coaches as experiential learners, which positioned participants as anti-intellectual and uncritical adopters of ‘what works’. These discourses functioned to reproduce relations of power between the facilitators (the holders of knowledge) and the participants (the recipients of knowledge). The impact of these discursive resources on programme design and delivery are discussed, alongside implications for elite coaches’ subjectivity and practice, in order to confront dominant and legitimate ‘truths’ in coach education.

摘要

正式教练教育和学习机会的设计和提供似乎被认为是理所当然的话语所渗透。这些话语对教练专业知识的社会建构产生了系统化的影响，并带来了潜在的问题后果。本研究采用话语分析的话语方法，探讨了高绩效教练教育计划中的促进者和教练构建教练学习的方式。使用课程参与者观察（10 天）、与教练和课程主持人的访谈（n = 29）和文件分析。调查结果表明，“学习”的主导话语是一个线性的、机械的和没有问题的过程，独立于上下文发生，教练是体验式学习者，这将参与者定位为“什么有效”的反智和不加批判的采用者。这些话语的作用是再现促进者（知识的持有者）和参与者（知识的接受者）之间的权力关系。讨论了这些话语资源对项目设计和交付的影响，以及对精英教练的主观性和实践的影响，以面对教练教育中占主导地位和合法的“真相”。