Aimed at BEST PRACTICE strand And CONCEPTUAL ISSUES IN COACH EDUCATION theme Principles of effective curriculum design for sports coaches David Piggott and Sergio Lara-Bercial Leeds Beckett University The purpose of this paper is to introduce concepts and exemplars to assist coaches in creating effective developmental curricula. Through our research and experience in formal and non-formal coach education, it has become clear that curriculum design - and attendant tasks such as performance modelling and performance analysis - is conspicuous by its absence. Yet recent research with serial winning coaches (Mallett & Lara-Bercial, in press) and guidance from international bodies (ICCE, ASOIF & LBU, 2013) suggests that ‘developing a vision’ and long-term planning against this vision is a crucial task for head coaches in talent development and performance contexts. Through our own work as coach developers, we have conceived of curriculum design as involving three sequential steps: 1) developing a tactical, technical mental model (TTMM) of a sport; 2) developing a performance model; and, based on steps 1 and 2, 3) deriving an age/stage curriculum. The paper therefore begins with a brief review of concepts from philosophy (Suits, 1978), education (Bruner, 1977) and sport (Grehaigne, Richard & Griffin, 2005) that we have found useful in developing TTMMs. We then pick up on trends in performance modelling (e.g. the English FA’s recent ‘DNA’ project) to show how statistics and analysis can assist in developing a vision for target performance. Finally, we show how Bruner’s idea of a spiral curriculum (Bruner, 1977) can be applied, with the aid of age/stage models, to structure an effective developmental curriculum to enhance programme planning and seasonal and sessional coaching. We conclude the paper with example curricula from two different high-performance basketball programmes in England. Through these exemplars we show how the concepts have been applied in practical talent development settings. We also raise a number of issues for further research, mainly concerning the implementation of such curricula in complex environments where a number of coaches with different backgrounds are embedded in existing hierarchical relationships. References Bruner, J. (1977). The Process of Education. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Grehaigne, J., Richard, J. and Griffin, L. (2005). Teaching and Learning Team Sports and Games. London: Routledge. Mallett, C. & Lara-Bercial, S. (in press). Serial Winning Coaches: Vision, People and Environment. In Raab, Wylleman, Seiler, Elbe & Hatzigeorgiadis (Eds). Sport Psychology in Europe at the Start of the Third Millenium. London: Elsevier. ICCE, ASOIF and LBU (2013). International Sport Coaching Framework (v1.2). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
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