Utilizing video to facilitate reflective practice: developing sports coaches

The professionalization of sports coaching has led to a constant need to develop and improve coaching performance and behavior. As a result, reflective practice has become common place within coaching and relevant to the development of sports coaches. This study aims to develop on traditional reflective processes, by identifying how video can be used to assist the learning process of coaches. Nineteen inexperienced coaches recounted their experience of using a video recording of a personal coaching practice, concentrating on: (a) the reflective process, (b) the use of video to assist this process, and (c) the practicalities of video reflection. Content analysis suggests increases in cognitive understanding of the coaching process and improvement in coaching performance are experienced through this form of reflection. Initial results suggest that video reflection can help improve inexperienced sports coaches by highlighting strengths and weaknesses in performance that may be overlooked by traditional methods.