LA Sports Foundation

This pilot study examines the hypothesis that learning sound instructional methods will allow coaches to promote not only the physical ​development and skill enhancement of their players, but also players’ social and ethical development. In addition to assessing player ​development and performance, the study examines some relationships among coaches’ development and coaches’, players’, and ​parents’ sideline behavior during competitive game situations.

Central to this study is the idea that youth coaches typically do not possess sufficient knowledge of basketball fundamentals and ​strategy nor, importantly, effective teaching and organizational methods that are necessary for effective player instruction. In addition, ​as classroom teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, so too do coaches tend to replicate the ways they were coached. Finally, ​and most significantly, coaches are not only teachers of skills and strategies, but also of ethical attitudes. They are engaged in ​attempting to help their players learn not only the behaviors of the game but also the moral and social values that make up good ​sportsmanship. However, they typically do not identify themselves as teachers. To be truly effective, coaches need to recognize their ​roles as teachers of knowledge and skills in both the physical and social domains.

To examine these assertions, this pilot study will provide six four-hour coaching workshops to five coaches (four central and one ​alternate). The workshops will follow a curriculum designed to teach coaches how to meet their athletic and social goals using an ​approach derived from research and practice in university-sponsored teacher education.

Following the workshops, an eight-team league composed of athletes ages 10 to 14, set up by the LASF, will begin an eight-week ​season of weekly practices and games in which four of the teams will be coached by those who have completed the workshop ​curriculum and four will be coached by coaches who did not.

All participating coaches will be pre-tested on social and ethical development measures already shown to be reliable and valid prior to ​their involvement. Players will also be pre-tested on social, ethical, and physical skills measures before their participation begins.

During the season, all games and practice sessions will be observed and/or videotaped. In addition, progress monitoring will be ​conducted by participant observers during practices and games. During games, attention will also be given to parents’, players’, and ​coaches’ behavior in relation to referee calls, etc. (i.e., sideline behavior). Weekly videotapes will be viewed and coded in an array of ​categories, including traditional skill performance and social behavior in context. Coding reliability will be pre-established.

At the end of the season, coaches and players will be post-tested on the same measures as those used in the pretest. Data analysis and ​the final report will be completed by early 2008.