Abstract
To date, much sports coaching research has tended to focus on components such as decision-making, knowledge structures, and mental models. However, limited attention has been given to the “types of thinking” coaches engage in when coaching athletes in situ. This gap in the research literature is problematic for both coaches and coach developers in improving coaching practice. Therefore, we explored tennis coaches’ cognitive processes (i.e., the what) and their type (i.e., the how). Using stimulated recall interviews (a knowledge elicitation method based on watching video recordings of one's own practice), data were collected from four expert tennis coaches within coaching sessions (n = 8). In addition, (n = 4) background interviews were conducted to help make sense of the data and inform the stimulated recall interview questions. A Reflexive Thematic Analysis revealed a framework of nine higher psychological functions (noticing, questioning, confirming, risk evaluation, forecasting, contextualizing, normalizing, problem-solving, and deductive reasoning) in which coaches engage during coaching practice. These findings have potential theoretical and practical applications in sports coaching practice and coach development.
Sports coaches must undertake many tasks and activities as part of their role. It is widely acknowledged in the academic literature that coaches are required to, amongst other things, identify faults in technique, develop effective strategies for competitions, and provide personalized feedback to athletes in a variety of settings. 1 Central to these facets of coaching is “thinking,” otherwise known as cognition. Cognition is a well-established feature of sports coaching literature.2,3 However, limited empirical research has sought to examine the cognitive processes of coaches operating in situ. 4 For clarity, we draw upon Quick and Lyle's 5 definition of cognition, which is explained as “‘thinking’—activities and processes—that occur ‘inside the coach's head’ while operating in a particular coaching environment and context’” 5(p. 717).
Within the academic literature, approaches to understanding cognitive features of practice have tended to fall into one of two categories, “retrospective” or “live”. 6 The current study adopts a retrospective design using stimulated recall as an important method for capturing coaches’ cognitive processes close to the moment of action. 7 Although not without limitations, such as potential reconstruction of thoughts post hoc, stimulated recall provides a valuable window into the coach's perspective and offers richer insight than interviews alone (i.e., without an accompanying stimulus). One of the benefits of stimulated recall lies in the ability to steer the interview questions to more carefully align with the research questions and line of enquiry. 8 Understanding what coaches think while they coach is crucial, as cognition underpins decision-making, behavior, and ultimately, coaching effectiveness. 5 Without this understanding, both research and practice risk overlooking the reasons behind observable coaching behaviors. Recognizing how and why coaches make in-the-moment decisions allows for more meaningful interpretations of coaching practice, particularly in complex, dynamic environments such as tennis (or other racket sports).
Understanding how coaches think while coaching is important and has been studied in some sports. For example, some studies have investigated the thinking of athletes, such as those by Whitehead and colleagues that use the Think Aloud Protocol.9,10 These studies typically investigated self-paced sports such as running, cycling, or snooker rather than more dynamic sports such as tennis or team sports. However, Swettenham et al. 11 have explored stress and the associated coping mechanisms in tennis. They reported that cognitive anxiety significantly increased from practice to competition, with performance-focused coping and stressors most commonly reported in both settings.
Coaching individual sports differs from coaching team sports. 12 This is largely a result of the complexity and difficulty caused by the larger number of athletes. However, there is some similarity in the coaches’ engagement in the micro-management of practice sessions. 5 In circumstances where coaches adopt such an approach, the capacity to observe and analyze the athlete's performance becomes more problematic. Tennis coaches are commonly required to be the opponent, ball feeder, coach, observer, analyst, and feedback provider. 11 Undertaking these tasks, often simultaneously, is likely to result in a high cognitive and physical load for the coach.
Within the sports coaching tennis-related literature, Pill et al. 13 examined effective teaching styles in junior tennis. They found that coaches were unaware of the factors that influenced their coaching style, which, it is suggested, stems in part from constraints on cognitive processes. 13 Similarly, Hewitt 14 found that tennis coaches were unaware of their teaching style within coaching sessions and did not examine their cognitions as the underlying reasons. Both studies highlight a need for coaches to develop greater situational awareness to understand the reasoning that underpins their behaviors.
Additionally, Reid et al. 15 explored the teaching of skill acquisition in tennis to facilitate player progress. They concluded that coaches focused on technical development to improve player performance when they worked with novice players. However, the reasoning behind the emphasis on technique was not explored. 15
In addition to contributing to the field of academia, this research holds practical value for those involved in coach development and education. Applied practitioners such as coach developers, mentors, and sport psychologists can benefit from understanding the cognitive demands and internal reasoning of coaches, enabling more targeted support and development interventions. Likewise, for academics and educators responsible for formal coach education, insights into real-world coaching cognition help bridge the gap between theory and practice. Embedding such knowledge into training programs can enhance the relevance and effectiveness of educational content, supporting the cultivation of reflective, context-aware practitioners. Similarly, this work also has the potential to facilitate reflection through discourse and act as a reflective practice tool.16,17 In this way, researching coaching cognition, particularly in under-explored contexts such as tennis, serves both scholarly and applied purposes, helping to inform and improve the future landscape of sports coaching and coach development.
For clarity within this research, we utilized Vygotsky's 18 concept of Higher Psychological Functions (i.e., types of thinking) to classify how cognitions can be grouped together according to similarities. This notion has also been used in other sport coaching research. 5 To date, no studies have examined tennis coaches’ thinking processes, which was the primary purpose of this study. In responding to the general call for greater in situ coaching research, tennis presents a high degree of challenge to capture in situ cognitions. 4 However, all sports have problems that coaches must navigate to some degree. Given the problem that has been described above in terms of the limited research into coaches’ cognitive, this study aimed to answer two questions:
What features of practice do coaches cognitively attend to when practicing?
What types of thinking do coaches engage in when coaching?
Method
To address the identified problems noted, stimulated recall was chosen as the knowledge elicitation method as it provided the opportunity to collect data within a naturalistic setting and kept ecological validity within the study. Importantly, there is no singular, overarching, or prescriptive method (pre-session interview, post-session interview, video prompting, audio prompting, etc.) for using stimulated recall as a research tool, and, as such, researchers have conducted studies that adopt slightly different approaches depending upon the aims of the investigation. 19 Indeed, Stodter and Whitehead 8 suggested that “Given the time and flexibility available for addressing reasoning and implicit theories, the method of SR interviewing appears better placed than TA to allow for embracing and considering the significant contextual, social, cultural and historical influences on sport coaching and associated cognitions” 8(p. 464). Building upon this literature, this study employed stimulated recall, whereby coaches observed a video of their coaching sessions with a researcher-led interrogation (through an interview) of the coaches’ cognitive processes while they watched. To aid the researcher's interpretation of the data, a background interview was conducted with each coach before any video recordings or stimulated recall interviews.
The philosophical position of this study was grounded in a realist ontology, asserting that reality exists beyond the researcher's comprehension. It also followed a postpositivist epistemology, recognizing that the researcher's background and standpoint shape their observations. 19
Participants and setting
Four male tennis coaches were purposively selected because of their elite level of coaching qualification (United Kingdom Coaching Certificate Levels 4 and 5), number of years as practicing coaches (range = 15–30 years), and role as head coaches of their respective clubs. Coaching sessions lasted between 45 and 75 min, depending on the session type and the players involved. As head coaches, participants were required to conduct on-court coaching sessions, manage the coaching program, and sometimes coach and manage other coaches. Consequently, these connections and responsibilities meant the coaches had deep knowledge and relationships with many of their athletes. Athletes ranged in skill level from grassroots to national-level players.
Although all coaches were qualified to Level 4 or 5, two worked predominantly with performance players (we refer to as “performance coaches”). In contrast, the other two (we refer to as “participation coaches”) worked with mostly recreational players, but none worked solely in a performance or participation domain. None of the coaches in this study played professionally, and coaching was their full-time profession.
Instruments
Stimulated recall is described as “a family of introspective research procedures through which cognitive processes can be investigated by inviting subjects to recall, when prompted by a video sequence, their concurrent thinking during that event” [7, p. 861]. Moreover, for this research design, stimulated recall affords coaches the possibility to focus on the “coaching processes,” avoid interference (from the researcher) within the session, and provide the freedom for their mental processes to unfold.
Semi-structured interviews to gather coaches’ background information were recorded using a Dictaphone. Coaching sessions were recorded (to inform the later stimulated recall interviews) using a video recorder fixed to a tripod and placed by the side of the tennis court. The coach and researcher watched the session on a laptop screen in the coach's office. The coach's verbalizations were recorded using a Dictaphone, and the researcher made accompanying notes during the process.
Procedures
Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee, and written consent was obtained from all participants. The study took place over four months and involved observing eight coaching sessions (two per coach) and four semi-structured background interviews. Pseudonyms are used to ensure participant anonymity. Participants were contacted initially via telephone to explain the rationale behind the study. Each participant was visited three times. First, a semi-structured interview was conducted to collect demographic data and to ascertain the coach's background, experience, and philosophy (range = 60–90 min). Interviews took place in the coaches’ office. For the second and third visits, a video-recorded observation of their coaching session was followed by an immediate stimulated recall interview to explore the coach's cognitive processes in the session they had coached immediately beforehand. Throughout all interviews, caution was taken by the lead researcher to avoid influencing participants’ responses, reduce bias, and minimize the overlay of the researcher's interpretation of events. For example, neutral prompts such as “Tell me more about…” were used to encourage open responses and avoid introducing negative connotations.
The lead researcher spoke with the coaches before all sessions. This allowed the coach to have time with their athletes to explain the rationale behind why the session was being recorded. Additionally, if the athlete was under 18 years old, the coach explained to the parent(s) why sessions were being video recorded. All sessions observed and recorded were pre-scheduled and an embedded part of the coaches’ coaching program. Observations were scheduled in mutual agreement with the lead researcher and coaches to ensure availability following the session for the coaches to participate in a stimulated recall.
During the coaching session, the camera and researcher remained in a fixed position, either directly behind the coach or at the corner of the court, depending on the coach's preferences and available space on the next court. This created a perspective whereby it was possible to: 1) note both coach and player positions on the court, 2) observe the quality of ball outcome (including landing area on the court, speed of the ball, and spin on the ball), and 3) overhear any coaching comments that were communicated during drills. Within one hour of the coaching session finishing, the coach and researcher met in the coach's office to review the recorded coaching session on a laptop. The coach was asked to watch the whole session video and simultaneously verbalize their thought processes during the session that they delivered. The coach and researcher mutually agreed on “moments of interest” that unfolded, and these verbalizations were recorded using a Dictaphone.
Data analysis
The primary researcher transcribed the interviews from the semi-structured interviews and stimulated recall sessions verbatim. The semi-structured interview transcripts were read to provide familiarity with the research setting and to help situate the coach's cognitive processes against a wider contextual backdrop. This process was vital in developing resources for the research team to understand the context of stimulated recall data better. Transcripts from the stimulated recall sessions were then broken down into 514 meaning units.3,20,21 Meaning units were created to capture specific cognitions (i.e., the content of thinking). Therefore, they were required to be sufficiently concise yet long enough to capture and represent the thought.
The meaning units were inductively analyzed using a Reflexive Thematic Analysis to comprehensively analyze and provide a rich account of the data. 22 The coding process was performed using Microsoft Excel so that meaning units could be transferred and placed under appropriate headings. Cells were color-coded to allow the researcher to identify the coaching session, the coach, and where the meaning unit originated. Further inductive analysis was also required to make sense of the developed themes and reconcile meaning units that did not initially fall into the primary categories. 23 To ensure rigor within the study, a blind 10% sample of the data was independently verified by another researcher. There was a 90% agreement rate across the identification and categorization of the meaning units. Where there was disagreement, a discussion occurred before a consensus was reached on the appropriate coding of the meaning unit. The lead researcher had expertise in tennis, which was drawn upon when interpreting and making sense of the data.
Next, the meaning units were inductively analyzed to generate a framework of higher psychological functions (types of thinking in which specific cognitions can be grouped). This provided a broad framework of the type of cognition, also referred to as Higher Psychological Functions. 18 Higher psychological functions were further analyzed and grouped, resulting in a configuration of second-order themes; for example, “noticing, questioning, and confirming” were grouped together as diagnostic cognitions.
After analyzing the meaning units, nine first-order themes were developed (Table 1), suggesting different types of cognition, better understood as “higher psychological functions,” that coaches engaged in during practice. These were: noticing, questioning, confirming, risk evaluating, forecasting, contextualizing, normalizing, problem-solving, and deductive reasoning. These higher psychological functions are presented in four sections, which include the nine developed themes. These themes have been intentionally grouped due to similarities between the cognitive styles. Example statements from the meaning units are provided to illustrate the classification process and provide transparency. To enhance the credibility of our findings, we shared a summary of the final results with participants and invited their feedback. This process of member reflections allowed participants to confirm the accuracy of our interpretations and offered an additional layer of validation to the analysis.
Reflexive thematic analysis of higher psychological functions.
Rigor
As with any empirical research, it is necessary to consider the rigor of the work. 24 To guide our approach, we drew on Tracy's 24 criteria for high-quality research. Importantly, we have drawn on the criteria below against which we wish this research to be judged. This study explores a meaningful and timely topic with the potential to inform and shape coach education. From a practical perspective, coaches may find value in using our findings to reflect on and enhance their own practice. Rigor is demonstrated through a transparent account of our analytical process (i.e., the processes contributing to theme development and member reflections). Sincerity is evident in our openness about the challenges associated with the stimulated recall method and the nature of post hoc reasoning. Additionally, we have included a wealth of participant quotations to provide readers with rich, illustrative data. For both coaches and coach developers, this area of research bridges theoretical and applied domains, contributing to academic discourse and everyday coaching practice. Ethical standards were upheld through approval by the university's ethics committee. Finally, our research methods were carefully selected and implemented to align with our aim of understanding what coaches think while they coach.
Results and discussion
Noticing, questioning, and confirming (Diagnostic cognitions)
Coaches spent significant time processing information to diagnose problems within the coaching session. The cognitive skills of noticing, questioning, and confirming equipped them with information, in some cases, better preparing them to act or store information to be used later. These findings extend Mason's 25 work, regarding the concept of “marking” an event, such that it can be “re-marked” upon later, to someone else 25(p. 33). The three higher psychological functions of noticing, questioning, and confirming are grouped under the umbrella theme of diagnostic cognitions. 26 They provide the coach with information from which they could select (or not) an appropriate course of action.
Noticing, questioning, and confirming are classified as first-order themes, while diagnostic cognition was developed as a broader second-order theme. 26 It was evident that some coaches noticed more than others. For example, while observing his player on the computer screen during stimulated recall, one coach noted that there was “No routine here at all” (Coach 3), while Coach 2 stated, “Now I can really see what's going on. I haven’t put any time or focus into the actual playing. I can just see what mood the players are in” (Coach 2). Both statements provide examples of what coaches noticed during sessions. This suggests that cognitive and physical routines can act as strategies to allow coaches to overcome environmental constraints using embedded routines within their coaching or instilling routines in their players, resulting in a capacity to focus on a narrower range of relevant cues. 27
As part of diagnosing, coaches questioned and confirmed what was happening in the session. Sometimes, the questioning was internal; at other times, it was directed at the player. For example, Coach 2 revealed his internal questions, “Is he feeling energetic? Focused? Happy?” (Coach 2). Both questioning and confirming appeared to be primary cognitive processes relied on by coaches to be certain about what was happening in their sessions. Coach 1 expressed, “And again, straight through the test, she can do this no problem …that's the one I’ve been keeping a special eye on, the way she has to back off,” illustrating that confirming was a cognitive process (that in some cases demands social interaction) required to allow the session to progress, or for future intervention to be structured. In some cases, those higher psychological functions of confirming, noticing, and questioning were strategically supportive for the coach, serving to triangulate data, verify findings, and contribute to the coach's understanding.
Risk evaluation and forecasting (Concept formation cognitions)
Risk evaluation within sessions accounted for a relatively small quantity of the overall data. However, risk evaluation is an important aspect of in situ coaching. Risk evaluation referred to some of the more general health and safety concerns that arose in sessions, particularly related to injury. It also signified a risk of a coaching strategy not bearing the desired outcome, or adequate progress not being achieved.
Considered more broadly, risk evaluation alludes to assessing potential adverse outcomes related to a particular goal context and course of action. In one instance, a performance coach was particularly concerned about his young female player returning from injury. He was very clearly constantly evaluating the risk of her continuing in the session. Coach 1 remarked, “I was just nervous about where she’d been with the injury. That's the stuff that's going to be undone, maybe when she first goes back into play.” In contrast, a participation coach (Coach 4) voiced his concern over two players. “My main concern at this time, believe it or not, was safety. I had visions that they were moving around, and one of them was going to get clattered.” These examples suggest a “forward orientation” in the coach's thinking. It was noticed that risk evaluation is equally likely to occur in the planning phase and delivery phases of sessions and is an ongoing task and cognitive process, constantly running in parallel to other ongoing physical and mental activities.
The ability to forecast what would happen was a common type of higher psychological function throughout this study. This type of thinking is linked to Lyle's 12 suggestion of “diagnostic hypothesizing” 12(p. 37). For example, when recapping his focus on a player during a coaching session, Coach 2 stated, “When we swap round later, he’ll be the guy who's having to perform and will be in the spotlight.” In another example, Coach 1 forecasted how a player would likely perform in a drill. “My expectation here is that she’ll know all this; she’ll nail the nine [targets] no problem whatsoever.” These examples demonstrate how coaches are required and able to think about the future using previous information to forecast how situations are likely to play out.
Both risk evaluation and forecasting appeared to be important features of how coaches mentally operate within sessions. The ability, or willingness, to think about what might happen in the future influences decisions made in the present, reflecting Lyle's 28 work on schematic decision-making models. 28
Contextualizing and normalizing (Schematic cognition)
Coaches demonstrated that they were synthesizing information and drawing on their knowledge bases to piece together different strands of information. 29 The reliance on utilizing appropriate information gained (both in and out of the session) proved an effective method to inform a course of action and strategy for the future. Examples of contextual information included a wide range of factors such as knowledge of what had happened before the session, understanding the nature of the wider competitive environment, and absorbing current information in the form of the player's mental state and physical condition. This was articulated by Coach 2, who suggested, “When we spoke the other day about the environment, atmosphere of the court – the first few minutes is me soaking up what's going on with everyone.” This cognitive process highlights the temporal aspect of coaching 30 and the significance of how what has happened previously will inevitably influence cognition and action in the present. Consequently, it demonstrates the challenge of how best to gather prior and contextual information to understand the rationale behind the engaged cognitions.
When analyzing a particular context, coaches evaluate whether what they are seeing is normal and not out of the ordinary. For this to happen, the coach needed extensive knowledge of the context, the tasks, and the players to compare past events to what was unfolding in the session. When observing his player serve, Coach 3 commented, “[He] served those two double faults to gift me the mini-set that we played, didn’t want to make too big a deal of it. I think he's done a lot of serving. It's probably just his serving arm getting tired.” The concept of normalizing is closely reflected in Lyle's 28 script schema model, which proposes that coaches have a mental script that is followed and an array of available solutions for when sessions deviate from the inner mental script (although with an acceptable level of variability built into the evaluation). In this study, coaches used specific past events as a frame of reference. For instance, “He wasn’t playing great. His forehand's been a bit of a problem recently” (Coach 2). Normalizing relied heavily on coaches having extensive knowledge of their players and the awareness to identify when, or if, an event was significantly out of place or unexpected.
While participation coaches could make more generalized comments about a player's ability in the broader context, performance coaches could give relatively more detailed accounts and examples of normalizing in action. For instance, Coach 4 (i.e., a participation coach) expressed, “I was happy with what she was doing; she can usually do well in the short court.” This demonstrates a broader, but perhaps less detailed picture of the player's overall ability. In contrast, a performance coach verbalized “His footwork wasn’t great. The court is different to what we’ve been playing over the last few days, so it's nothing which is a longer-term issue, just in that moment” (Coach 2). This finding illustrates how coaches who work with players frequently and over longer periods can make more informed decisions and draw upon information that can only be gathered by developing coach-player relationships. It also suggests that cognitions, such as normalizing, reinforce the place of mental models of performance/expectations in providing a reference point for coaches’ evaluations of performance/progress.
Problem solving and deductive reasoning (Reasoning cognition)
In all sessions, it became apparent that coaches encountered problems or moments of crisis, whether it was a less-than-ideal set of circumstances before the session, a player who was injured, or a player who lacked confidence. In all cases, coaches were required to identify the problem, find a solution, and implement their proposal as an action or intervention. 5,31 In this case, the higher psychological function of problem-solving took place based on the availability of information and falls under the second-order theme of reasoning. 31 In one example, a performance coach said, “The stuff he really needs to work on is more of a defensive out wide movement” (Coach 2), illustrating the specific issue that needed to be addressed.
Deductive reasoning involves the application of logic or rational calculation when considering the likely outcome of an event. 31 The process of deductive reasoning became apparent when coaches appeared to engage in an inner dialogue, whereby they offered a justification or logical explanation of what they were thinking. This particular psychological function relies upon other functions that occur or have occurred, such as contextualizing, noticing, and forecasting. As an example, a performance coach offered a justification of why he made a specific decision in a session, stating that, “Because what I’ve got in my head, what we’ve done is have a grid so that we know what the qualities are and where they relate to ranking around each of the court patterns” (Coach 2). Similarly, another coach offered, “I was also thinking, ‘How much do I need to be cheering her on?’ But then thinking ‘Hold on. Her aspiration is this: to be a full-time professional player.’ And [the] reality is very often [different]. It's just get your head down and get on with it’” (Coach 1). This demonstrates the coach's internal deliberation and logical thinking before choosing not to praise his player at the moment, as it was incongruent with her long-term goals.
Influences on coaches’ thinking are noteworthy. Coaches frequently commented on whether what they were seeing was out of the ordinary. Often, pieces of information were either overlaid or joined together to inform a judgment. Problem-solving and deductive reasoning were most prevalent with performance coaches. It is interesting, perhaps not surprising, that performance coaches exhibited both of these particular cognitive skills more frequently, as they were required to focus on performance-based outcomes (or goals) with their players. In contrast, the participation coaches likely had different domain-dependent goals, such as retaining clients, resulting in less problem-solving and deductive reasoning, as less importance was placed on the outcome of their player's next match. These findings illustrate that coaches work with different goal-derived mental models depending on their context. 12 While goals are evident in all domains, their significance and level of complexity are likely driving forces behind how coaches are required to operate cognitively.
It seems entirely plausible that problem-solving and deductive reasoning are interlinked and dependent upon one another. For example, coaches who appear to spend little time diagnosing may make a poorly informed rationalization of a situation, resulting in inappropriate decision-making and subsequent action. Although the relationship between problem solving and deductive reasoning was not explored within this study, as it was not intended to investigate the interconnectedness of cognitive skills, it does illustrate that coaches in different contexts are reliant on a different blend of cognitive processes or “cognitive alchemy” 32(p 265). The findings from this study suggest that interventions are domain-specific (i.e., performance or recreational). Therefore, behaviors that follow from these will likely require coaches to engage in particular types of higher psychological functions.
Discussion
This discussion section is intentionally short, as much of the interpretation has been covered within the results. Diagnostic cognitions 26 occur when coaches seek to identify a problem's root cause. When coaches diagnose problems, they should engage higher psychological functions such as noticing, questioning, or confirming to gather information that can be conceptualized and made sense of. 5 To diagnose problems, coaches must engage in cognitive processes to obtain information from their surroundings. 25
In this study, considering risk and forecasting or predicting future events emerged as concept formation cognitions. 33 Coaches are required to generate ideas and make sense of information around them as part of considering what might happen in the future. 34 Furthermore, it required coaches to think about (and, at times, make informed predictions about) the future, drawing on information gained from the diagnosis phase and previous experience, to make an informed judgment about what might occur and the likely outcome. It would be helpful for future research to explore the next phase of such cognition, specifically, how the problem, which has been cognitively identified, marked, and categorized, is manifested in a consequent coaching strategy or action. There is potential for further work that addresses the catalyst, identification, analysis, and action chain; specifically, the underlying causes that trigger coaching actions and the selection and implementation of solutions. 3
Schematic cognitions 34 are best illustrated when coaches draw upon their sport-specific, player, and pedagogical knowledge.35,36 In this study, coaches used strands of information obtained in and out of the session to help them understand what was happening. In some instances, coaches alluded to knowledge of their players’ personalities. Interestingly, it is suggested that schematic cognition was developed due to the particular nuance of stimulated recall as a knowledge elicitation method (in situ cognition as well as unintended post-session reflection), which is discussed in the next section.
The second-order theme of reasoning included both problem solving and deductive reasoning. 31 Kirsh 34 remarks that “Environments in which people regularly act are laden with mental aids, so problem solving is more a matter of using those aids effectively” 34(p. 284). Coaches should engage in these cognitive processes when allowed time to deliberate in sessions. In this study, stimulated recall allowed coaches to demonstrate this type of thinking. However, it is possible to argue that this was a finding resulting from an unforeseen methodological limitation of post hoc rationalizing (discussed in the limitations section) of the chosen knowledge elicitation tool. This study's reasoning was deductive in that coaches followed a logical train of thought, rather than generalizing from what they saw. However, it is acknowledged that coaches are likely to use both inductive and deductive reasoning.
Study Limitations and Future Directions
The findings within this research support the use of stimulated recall as a reflexive tool to help coaches critique their coaching or perhaps offer an alternate perspective on incidents that might otherwise have been witnessed in the coaching session. Stimulated recall, as much as possible, preserved the ecological validity and ‘flow’ of the coaching session. Whilst there were a few instances where the coach alluded to the camera and researcher being present, in general, the procedures reinforced the notion that stimulated recall is an unobtrusive knowledge elicitation method, affording the coach and player opportunities to have private conversations, where necessary, and to retain the unaffected nature of the sessions.
Video recordings of the coaches’ sessions were only played once, with necessary and appropriate pauses, which intentionally reduced the propensity for interference with their memory recall. However, this study found that interrogating and providing coaches with the opportunity to comment on how they perceived the quality of their session interfered with the authenticity of the cognition itself, for example, some coaches were more concerned with the appearance of their coaching (how they, the coach, looked and acted) whilst watching themselves on the screen. Conversely, it is important to note the limitation of only providing coaches with one opportunity to comment on their cognitive processes, potentially resulting in an oversight of key incidents. Additionally, it is important to note that this study involved only four coaches; future research may consider including a larger sample across various sports.
It is important to consider the quality and validity of captured coaching cognitions. When coaches fell into a more reflexive mindset whilst watching themselves on the video after the session, it encouraged them to dwell on “what could have been” or “what they missed when they were coaching,” rather than verbalize what cognitions were “happening at the time”. 37 This methodological limitation highlights the fallibility of coaches’ retrospective accounts regarding how well they can recall in situ cognitions. The issue of memory decay also appeared prevalent, particularly with participation coaches, who could not provide the same richness of data compared to their performance coach counterparts. The problem of memory decay is a methodological limitation; however, this was guarded against, as much as possible, by asking all coaches to participate in the stimulated recall within one hour of their coaching session finishing.
Conclusion
In summary, this study demonstrated that coaching cognitions require a broader and deeper understanding of the surrounding context when considering judgments and relevance. Establishing higher psychological functions offers a valuable framework and vocabulary to explore cognitions and contribute to a better understanding of cognitions in context. Both coaches and coach developers across sports can use this framework. This is a significant contribution to the academic and applied field of sports coaching. For example, coach developers can use this framework to work with coaches to examine what type of cognitive processes they are most frequently engaging. Finally, this study has revealed a link between situational context and types of higher psychological functions, which coach developers could use to facilitate coach development as part of their work. However, what remains unclear at this stage is the strength of influence of the environment and “personalized weighting” that coaches attribute to events, on these types of cognitions.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.