Opportunities and Engagement: Coach learning at the Queensland Academy of Sport

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

Given that the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) employs significant numbers of full-time performance sport coaches, it may be accurately characterised as a genuine workplace. As such, it is perhaps most desirable to investigate the ways these coaches learn their work through the application of a workplace learning* (see glossary) framework. Accordingly, throughout this thesis, I will argue that an understanding of the interaction between what the workplace (QAS) affords the individual and the personal agency* of the individual (high performance sports coaches), is important for structuring work environments that facilitate meaningful learning. Coaching* work can be viewed as a highly complex collection of practices in which effort is made to improve or sustain performance towards identified goals (Dickson, 2001b; Lyle, 2002). Performance coaches are often held totally responsible for competition results that are predominantly complex, dynamic and unpredictable, all of which is subject to intense and continuous scrutiny by fans and the media (Dawson, Dobson, & Gerrard, 2000; Potrac, Brewer, Jones, Armour, & Hoff, 2000). For full¬time coaches, such as those employed at the QAS, increased commitments bring increased expectations, pressures and demands. Understanding how these individuals learn to perform the work they undertake, and the influence their employing organisation can have on this learning, was the fundamental purpose of this research. The traditional view of learning has been steadily replaced with the focus on the person as a member of a sociocultural community in which activities, tasks, functions and understandings do not exist in isolation but rather as a part of broader systems of relations such as those found in workplaces(Hager, 2005; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Regarding workplace learning, Billett (2006) advocates a consideration of the interdependence between the individual and the social when describing learning through engagement in work practices. This way of understanding learning was extremely generative in the context of this research in that it allowed a consideration of both the individual (the QAS coach) and the organisation (the QAS) when discussing the learning that did, and just as importantly, did not take place. Analysis of data collected by means of face¬to¬face questionnaires with the coaches (n=24) and semi¬structured interviews with a smaller group of coaches (n=6) and administrators (n=6), revealed that coaches learned through a variety of sources both within and outside of (but often influenced by) the QAS. In addition, there were a range of factors involved in the operationalisation of policy, the working climate and the physical environment that were reported to have a significant impact on the learning of the coaches. In keeping with Billett’s theorising, aspects of the individuals’ personal agency were also found to be critical to the learning that did and did not take place. Indeed, it was the coaches’ personal agency which directed their engagement with the available sources, and their agency was, in turn, influenced by what the QAS afforded them. The QAS workplace could not be thought of as a benign entity. Previous empirical research has demonstrated that affordances* in workplaces are shaped by workplace hierarchies, group affiliations, personal relations, workplace cliques, cultural practices, race, gender, language skills, worker or employment status, and social norms (Billett, 2001a, 2004c, 2006b). The QAS was no different, with the interview data highlighting the existence of workplace structures, hierarchies and policies, which resulted in varied access and affordances for different coaches. Overall, the results of this research supported the contention that the organisational affordances and personal agency are interdependent in ways that might be considered relational rather than mutual or reciprocal.