USING VISUAL DISPLAYS

The conceptualisation of the Coaches’ Process of Knowledge Generation for CPP presented in this chapter, aims at providing an epistemological an

ontological and a methodological (Lincoln & Guba, 2013) understanding of the process coaches need to engage into, to generate contextualised pedagogical tactical content knowledge when coaching soccer. In order to graphically depict the relationships between components and sub-components, I opted for a ‘Network Visual Display’ as per Verdinelli & Scagnoli (2013).

Similarly to pre-doctoral student Leigh Star (Strauss, 1987, p. 179), I did not leave the use of the visual displays or as Strauss calls them, the “visual stories”, as useful organisational tools, only for the final write-up. For me, the visual displays, or as I call them, visual representations, took life in the early analysis stages (see figures 5.3 to 5.8). They became an important tool, which I continued to develop further, as a means of giving greater conceptual order to the data. Finally, visual representations were used to provide a complete visual rendition of “what [was] going on with the phenomena under scrutiny” (p. 143). I found this to be a ‘soulful, life-giving’ process for my data set. The continuous development of visuals of data, allowed me to stay close to the data as much as possible. Faithfulness to data was maintained by rigorous internal and external verification processes (Creswell, 2014) as described in Chapter 3. This

cautiously contributed to the accuracy of the visuals and aids in the attempt to represent an accurate or an approximate visual rendition of “what it takes verbally to characterize the publication’s elicited analytic structure” (Strauss, 1987, p. 250). Williamson and Long (2005) emphasise the importance to remain truthful to data and suggest that, while simplification is an important aspect of data displays, over-simplification should be avoided. This is also important in view of the coaching ontological reality. As expressed by the concept of

coaching ‘orchestration’, it is possible to recognise coaching as ambiguous and complex, while conceptualising it (coaching) as “a system comprising

manageable complexity” (Jones & Ronglan, 2018, p. 913).

In recognising coaching as ambiguous and problematic (Cushion, Armour, & Jones, 2006; Jones, Armour, & Potrac, 2002; Jones & Wallace, 2006) I strived not to end up with an unrealistic and unproblematic

conceptualisation (1.1 and 1.2), during my discussions with the expert coaches, I asked them the following questions:

1. How important do you consider this process for CPP in soccer? 2. Would you design it differently? What would you change?

3. Would you include or present any other area that is not included in this version?

4. Question 1 was repeated a second time.

In working through the responses allowed I followed Williamson and Long's (2005) suggestions to return to the dataset and ensure that the visual display provide a faithful representation of what the participating expert coaches expressed.

There were 44 instances in which coaches commented on the design. In 17 instances, 7 of the 10 participating coaches confirmed the presented

conceptualisation (1.2). The other 3 did not show disagreement at any point with the general concept behind it.

Coach Ray expressed his belief that this concept is applicable to any sports coach who wants to CPP. With reference to the coaching domains (Lyle, 2002) , he finds this model to be applicable to both the development coaching and performance coaching, but not to participation coaching.

Coach Soldano, claims that he has been using a similar process to the one presented in this study since the 1990’s. Coach Fannar reported that he uses ‘scrutiny of the environment’ before he accepts a new job. Coach Joseph agrees that this concept represents the way he works and shares the belief that many coaches already go through the presented process, tacitly. Coach Andy confirms that the presented conceptualisation matched the process that he goes through from the moment he is in his room thinking about a session, at home, to the moment he is on the field of play. He clarifies that some areas may be more important than others at different stages, and the process would allow him to focus on any of the areas as much as needed within the respective context. As an ex-soccer coach, who has now taken more the role of educator, coach Andy feels confident in including this model “as the first iteration to coaching”. “…at each level, depending on the level of the coach, I can build my curriculum of coaching education” on this conceptualisation.

Coach Paul shares a very similar thought to coach Andy. As a PE teacher and one of the main soccer coaches in Malta, coach Paul shares that differently from his early years in coaching, his experience now makes him believe that academic understanding of the coaching process is important. He emphasises that this process is a necessity when it comes to coaching through PoP. He finds the Coaches’ Process of Knowledge Generation for CPP to be an important tool to prepare, adapt and evaluate better. “This is a guideline for coaches who CPP” he emphasises.

The fact that participants have confirmed that this is, broadly speaking, what they do in practice, might diminish the innovative nature of this study. However, this study stands to be important as it is important for research to understand and be able to initiate an articulation of what coaches may do when generating their knowledge. If this is exactly what coaches do in practice, this study is explicitly expressing what is implicit in nature. This also assists in furthering our understanding of the concept of CPP. Also, it is imperative to understand that while these coaches might be going through this process

already, many others, might be struggling to generate the necessary knowledge (Harvey & Jarrett, 2014; Mitchell et al., 2013; Roberts, 2011)

5.3 THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE IN VIEW OF THE COACHES’