PES6255 Chap.4 What Coaches Want from Coach Education
What Coaches Want from Coach Education
One review, and the discipline of reading its scope first
The set reading for this part of the course is a mixed methods systematic review of what sports coaches themselves say about their learning, published in a coaching science journal in January 2026 by researchers at this University.
Its search identified over eleven thousand records, screened more than three thousand titles, and finished with thirty eight studies published between 2005 and 2023 covering 7,717 participants across fourteen countries.
Two thirds of the included studies are qualitative, which decides how the findings can be cited: they describe what coaches say in their own terms across many settings, and they cannot support a claim about what proportion of all coaches believe something.
Who is inside the evidence
The participant profile is where the review becomes useful for policy arguments.
Most participants are practising coaches, with a smaller group of students working towards coaching qualifications, and ages run from fourteen to seventy four. Around three fifths held a coaching certificate, around a quarter did not, and for the remainder certification was not reported at all.
Where employment status was recorded, volunteers were the largest group by a wide margin, with small numbers of full time and part time paid coaches.
The highest education level attained was not reported for more than two thirds of participants, which is worth stating whenever this literature is used to describe the academic profile of the coaching workforce.
The finding everybody quotes, and the sentence they skip
All thirty eight studies reported the formal learning coaches had received; seventeen also reported informal learning and eight reported non formal learning such as clinics, seminars and conferences.
Counting how coaches spoke about each format, formal learning drew advantage comments in twenty four studies and disadvantage comments in eighteen, informal learning drew advantages in fifteen against one disadvantage, and non formal learning appeared too rarely to support much.
The skipped sentence comes next: coaches described similar professional and interpersonal benefits across all three formats, and what separated them was the perceived quality of the experience.
The preference is not for informality; it is for learning that felt relevant.
Needs by level, and the tier the evidence cannot see
Sorting needs by coaching level produces an orderly pattern: newer coaches ask for range, including coaching knowledge and competence, networking, sport science and specialist knowledge and the use of technology, while more experienced coaches ask for specialist knowledge and interpersonal skills.
Three drivers of perceived quality are identified, covering curriculum design, a learning context that resembles where the coach works, and assessment relevant to the job, and the two strongest reasons coaches engage at all are satisfying an accreditation requirement and advancing a career.
The review then names its own gap: advanced and senior coaches at the intermediate level are notably absent from the literature, which is exactly the tier a federation designing its next certification level needs evidence about.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The search, the screening and what thirty eight studies over eighteen years can support
- 02
Design mix and quality ratings, and why a count of studies is not a count of coaches
- 03
Certification, employment status and education level in the participant profile
- 04
Formal, informal and non-formal learning, with the advantage and disadvantage counts
- 05
Perceived quality as the differentiating factor across all three formats
- 06
Learning needs by coaching level, and the shared ground between them
- 07
The missing senior tier, and how to use a limitation as a finding
Answer a federation that wants to drop its courses
- 2Concede what the review does show.
- 3Identify the factor the review says is doing the work.
- 3Give the option the proposal has missed, with an evaluation measure.
Key terms
- Systematic Review
- A review that states its search, screening and appraisal rules in advance so that another researcher could reproduce the set of studies it draws on.
- Non-formal Learning
- Organised educational activity outside the formal system, such as coaching clinics, seminars, workshops and conferences.
- Perceived Quality
- The learner's judgement of a learning experience, identified in this review as what separates formats rather than the format itself.
- Evidence Gap
- A population or question the existing literature has not covered, stated as a finding with a proposed next study rather than as an excuse.
What Coaches Want from Coach Education FAQ
What does the review actually conclude about formal courses?
That coaches prefer informal learning across levels, and that support for formal learning appears when the quality of the experience is assured. It identifies three drivers of that quality: curriculum design, a learning context relevant to the coach's own setting, and relevant assessment.
It also notes that mentoring, often treated as informal, can be built into formal programmes, and that the potential to build professional networks is valued by coaches regardless of format.
How should I cite counts from a systematic review?
Count what was counted. Saying that fifteen of the included studies reported advantages of informal learning is safe; saying that coaches prefer informal learning by fifteen to one is not, because it silently converts a count of studies into a count of people and no sampling in this literature supports that.
The same discipline applies to participant characteristics: they describe the people in the included studies, not the coaching workforce of any country.
Assessment move
Read the abstract, the participant table and the limitations before the discussion, and write down the three numbers you would be willing to defend in a viva. Then use them: an assignment that cites this review twice with precise counts will read as better evidenced than one that cites it eight times in general terms.
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