Value Creation Stories in Coach Developer Social Learning Spaces

About the Project

Research concerning Coach Developers has steadily increased in volume over the last decade (e.g., Stodter and Cushion 2019; North 2010; Kraft, Culver, and Din 2020). A small number of studies have explicitly investigated how Coach Developers learn and have sought to inform the field as to how such practitioners might be best supported (e.g., Campbell, Fallaize, and Schempp 2021; Culver, Werthner, and Trudel 2019). These studies have demonstrated notable deficiencies in the learning provision offered to Coach Developers, commonly suggesting their training amounted to little more than prescriptive instruction of how to deliver coach education courses – a practice starkly in contrast to the espoused theoretical underpinnings of many of the courses themselves (Stodter and Cushion 2019; Culver, Werthner, and Trudel 2019). Insightful research on broad function of coach development has been conducted in numerous countries around the world including New Zealand (Fyall et al. 2023), the USA (Kuklick and Mills 2023) and Brazil (Ciampolini et al. 2022).

For the purposes of the present investigation, we will adopt Wenger-Trayner et al.’s (2015) social theory of learning. Building on previous iterations of their thinking (Wenger 1998; Lave and Wenger 1991), Wenger-Trayner and WengerTrayner (2020, 34) proposed their social theory of learning to feature “value creation in social learning spaces” as the central construct. A social learning space is a group of practitioners who come together because they care to make a difference in a particular context, engage their uncertainty, and pay attention to data (Kraft and Culver 2021). This is a discrete concept from a Community of Practice (Wenger 1998), which is a more distinct, stable, and abiding social structure. Within social learning spaces, value creation is the negotiation of meaning assigned by an individual to either explicit or tacit phenomena (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner 2020). Therefore, individual practitioners determine what is of value. Such phenomena could be, for example, a promising idea, getting to know a useful contact, or adopting a new tool that fundamentally re-shapes their practice (Culver, Kraft, and Duarte 2020).

Research utilizing the VCF to date has generally affirmed the usefulness of the tool, although the authors of each study reported their own respective significant limitation. Value creation stories have been utilized in research spanning the fields of leisure (Hanley, Baker, and Pavlidis 2018), educational technology (Booth and Kellogg 2015), financial governance (Wenger-Trayner 2017), and adult education (Guldberg et al. 2021), and have been shown to demonstrate potential to capture short and long flows. Value creation stories, represented as longer value flows, have not commonly been utilized in sport research. Value creation stories are a narrative of what, and how, value has been generated. Our recent research (Vinson, Bradshaw, and Cale 2024) has demonstrated the potential of this framework to advance the field of Coach Developer learning. However, considerable further work and refinement must be undertaken in order to capture effective ways to illustrate and evidence value creation. Therefore, the first aim of this investigation is to better understand the value created for, and through, participants recruited to Coach Developer learning programmes. The second aim of the present study is to investigate ways in which to meaningfully convey value creation stories in both academic and applied contexts.

Coach Developer and Performance Analyst Research Group

Application Process

To begin the application process please go to: https://www.worc.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/applying-for-a-phd/.

The Interview

All successful applicants will be offered an interview with the proposed Supervisory Team. You will be contacted by a member of the Doctoral School Team to find a suitable date. Interviews can be conducted in person or over Microsoft Teams.

Funding your PhD

For information about Doctoral Loans please visit: https://www.worc.ac.uk/study/feesand-finance/doctoral-loans.aspx

During your PhD you can access the Research Conference Support Scheme to support the costs of presenting your research at an external conference.

Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Applications accepted all year round

Prof Don Vinson, Dr Rhys Pritchard

For further details, please contact Professor Don Vinson, d.vinson@worc.ac.uk