Working with coaches and their teams in youth and collegiate sport in the USA: An interview with Dr. Andy Gillham

Introduction

As a long-time participant in the research and scholarly literature on coaching effectiveness, I am familiar with Dr. Gillham’s research work and have used the scale (Coaching Success Questionnaire-2) that he and his colleagues ¹ have developed. Interestingly, however, the interview contained in the current article focused on the applied work that he has completed with youth and collegiate coaches and their teams. Based on my reading of his responses to the questions posed to him, it is obvious that Dr. Gillham has continued to base his applied work in the research literature. Thus, it was a pleasure for me to read and reflect on the information presented in this interview article.

In commenting on this work, I begin by identifying the strengths of this article, especially in terms of what it provides for both researchers and practitioners. This section is followed by a second that identifies a couple of issues to consider for future research and applied work on coaching effectiveness.

Strengths of this article

To begin with, the early questions asked by Dr. Jenkins and responded to by Dr. Gillham provide the reader with a very clear summary of Dr. Gillham’s career track as he moved from undergraduate to graduate work and then into the consulting area. Although this career track is, of course, very specific to Dr. Gillham, it does provide readers (especially those interested in careers in sport consulting) with a good roadmap as to some possible lead-up experiences that might be valuable for working in the consultant field. In addition, this description of Dr. Gillham’s career track clearly exemplifies how many times we all experience turns in the road that ultimately lead us to different endpoints than we had expected. It is helpful for all of us to be reminded of that fact.

A second strength of this article lies in Dr. Gillham’s presentation of some very descriptive profiles of coaches with whom he has worked as an athlete, researcher, and, especially, as a consultant. These profiles reflect different philosophies, attitudes, behaviors, and coach–athlete interactional styles. Such profiles are very important for researchers and sport psychology consultants in the field to consider, but they additionally provide all readers with very field-based data that could be useful in coach effectiveness training programs and courses.

Third, the interview responses included an interesting perspective on the similarities and differences between what we learn through research work on coaching effectiveness and what we can learn from observations or applied work in the field. My first research work in the area of coaching effectiveness involved a season-long observation of five different coaches in order to code the type of feedback they provided their athletes. I attended practices and games of these five teams beginning in the pre-season and continuing on to the end of the competitive season. Although the data I collected, as well as the subsequent results I reported on, were very much objectively (quantitatively) based, I have always said that I learned as much or more from being in the field and simply observing five coaches who exhibited significantly different patterns of behavior and interaction with their athletes. The value of both these sources of information was evident throughout the interview with Dr. Gilham.

Fourth, Dr. Gillham also delineates some comparisons between different types of research approaches (e.g. particularly qualitative and quantitative). These somewhat contrasting perspectives are certainly akin to the comparison between research and applied work in that they might focus on the same questions and issues but then include different procedural approaches that could result in similar or completely different results. Each approach, however, is necessary to the field and together they provide a more complete picture of the phenomenon under study.

Questions to consider in future work on coaching effectiveness

In his interview responses, Dr. Gillham alluded to an overarching concern for researchers as well as practitioners in the coaching effectiveness field as to whether or not we can ever construct an instrument (assuming it to be quantitatively based) that provides us with an accurate way to assess coaches’ effectiveness across a large range of sports and age levels. Over the past years, a number of such instruments have been developed and tested for their reliability and validity. Many of these were developed using psychologically based theories that can be applied to the study of effective coaching (e.g. self-determination theory, goal orientation theory, self-efficacy). Furthermore, the validity of the relationships specified in these theories of coaching effectiveness has been assessed via the research process. In general, support has been found for the relationships specified in all of these theories. Therefore, can we, then, develop an instrument that would be based on these theories but that would also be useful in the field (e.g. one that could be used by researchers as well as practitioners)? Dr. Gillham points out in this interview article as well as in others ² that athletic directors primarily evaluate the success/effectiveness of coaches in their organization by using win/loss records. Yet, we know that this statistic provides only one way to assess the coach’s effectiveness. By having a scale that assesses a variety of coach behaviors, attitudes, values, and characteristics (e.g. exhibiting autonomy-supportive rather than controlling approaches; providing incrementally based rather than entity-based feedback; exhibiting high levels of emotional intelligence), researchers could move forward in their study of the correlates of effective coaching and the positive outcomes that may be obtained. In developing such scales, however, we have to be sure that such instruments are not only reliable (e.g. produce consistent scores across items and across time) but also, and more importantly, that they are valid (i.e. that they really measure what it is that we want to measure). In this case, the construct to be measured would be coach effectiveness, and we would like to get a scale that provides a very good profile for each coach in terms of the valued traits/characteristics, interactional styles, behavior, that are essential to the overall construct of effective coaching. As Dr. Gillham suggests in this article, each item in the scale must be carefully written so that it is meaningful to the athlete’s experiences.

It is likely that once such a scale is developed, practitioners (e.g. athletic directors) could also use it not only to obtain an evaluation of individual coaches in their organization but also to provide regular guidance to coaches in terms of improving their work in the field. That is, each coach within an organization could be evaluated each year and relevant recommendations/guidelines given to each one to enhance her/his effectiveness in the sport context. The development of such a scale should be within our (the field’s) range of expertise given the theory-based research that has been published to date.

Second, we also need more research work that assesses the research-to-practice link. That is, can we, and how can we, use the information accumulated through the research process concerning the correlates of effective coaching to develop coach training programs? Some of this intervention work has certainly been completed and published. But, often the results are specific to one particular sport setting or age group. Thus, more applied work is needed to add to this more applied knowledge base. The development and assessment of the efficacy of such coach training programs should be of great importance to the field.

Conclusion

The question–answer session on which this article is based focused on a very important and currently relevant topic. As I noted earlier, a particular strength of this article is that Dr. Gillham’s responses are clearly based in the research literature but also reflect the applied work that he has completed in the sport field. Such a perspective is certainly of value to all readers.