Coaches of Athletes with a Physical Disability: A Look at their Learning Experiences

Abstract

Although coaching has become a popular area for research, little is known about coaches of athletes with a disability (Cregan et al., 2007; DePauw & Gavron, 1991, 2005). The purpose of this study was to explore how disability sport coaches learnt to coach and, more specifically, how they learnt through interactions. Recent disability sport research has revealed that coaches work with their athletes to enhance their learning (Cregan et al., 2007; O’Neill & Richardson, 2008); as such, athletes also participated in this study. Data collection included 20 semi-structured interviews and 14 non-participant observation sessions with five coach-athlete dyads. A thematic analysis was conducted (Braun & Clarke, 2006), which revealed that coaches from various backgrounds commonly learnt through informal learning situations, most frequently through interactions with others. It is suggested that organizations nurture these informal situations and offer more disability-specific nonformal and formal situations to enhance coaches’ learning opportunities.