A Content Analysis of Empirical Literature on Sport Coach Education Programs Around the World, 2010–2019

Abstract

There has been a lack of synthesis on the existence, effectiveness, and nature of sport coach education programs (CEPs) from a global perspective. As well, given the growth of CEP-related research in the past decade there is a need to amalgamate the results of these studies in order to identify key areas of importance and future directions to inform the improvement of current CEPs. The purpose of this project was to perform a scoping review of literature on evaluations of sport CEP around the world, by reviewing literature from 2010-2019 found in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin language journals. The PRISMA-ScR checklist for scoping reviews was used to guide an effective and comprehensive implementation of this study. Eight databases relevant to the domain of sport coaching were searched to generate a total of 5467 records. After removing duplicates, a total of 3360 studies were initially screened by title and abstract, 383 studies were involved in the full-text screening, and finally, 70 records were selected for the data extraction phase. Two analyses were performed with the extracted data: (a) content analysis on studies with evaluations, and (b) qualitative description of CEP evaluation results. The results of the content analysis consisted of a mix of frequency and descriptive statistics, and were divided into three sections: (a) context and participants, (b) program design, and (c) methodology and methods. The results of the description of CEP results consisted of three themes related to the types of evaluation research, and their sub-themes: (a) outcome: changes in knowledge and skills, behaviour change, attitudes, confidence, and intentions, and athlete outcomes), (b) process: facilitators to learning, challenges to learning, and mediums of training, and (c) implementation: facilitators to delivery, challenges to delivery, and suggestions for program improvement. Implications of this review will be discussed with regards to recommendations for improvement of sport CEP learning environments at local, regional, and national levels.