Developing Expertise in Sport Coaching Through Engagement with Disability Programmes

Numerous academic and practitioner research has examined the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the development of sport coaches in the UK (e.g. Crisp 2018; Stoszkowski and Collins 2018). However, whilst most fields related to coach development have significant bodies of work underpinning them, there is a dearth of information related to best practice within the context of disability sport coaching. Given that both coach learning in the HEI context and disability sports coaching are significant areas worthy of further exploration, this work investigates how learning can be developed through disability sport coaching in the HEI context. The aims of this study were to gather the perceptions, thoughts, and experiences of ten student-coaches enrolled on an HEI coaching programme who were completing a year long placement module that included sessions for participants with disabilities. Data were collected through two focus group meetings with the student-coaches and the submission of learning journals. Inductive analysis showed that coaching disability groups facilitated learning through generating knowledge from practice through a process of reflection, higher order thinking, and meta-cognition. This suggests that using disability coaching can be a useful tool for HEIs to use in terms of challenging student-coach practice and education.