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Abstract
Coach education programs (CEPs) provide coaches with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve athlete’s sport experiences. However, CEPs have historically failed to position themselves as a valuable source of coach learning (Cushion et al., 2010), indicating there is a need to evaluate and improve CEPs. Given this, the purpose of this study was to conduct a principles-focused evaluation (PFE) of United States Soccer’s CEP. PFE posits that an evaluation should be judged by whether it produces information that can be used by the primary stakeholders of the evaluation (Patton, 2018c), which in this case, were the full-time staff in the coach education department at US Soccer. The evaluation took place over 17-months and included three phases. In the first phase, the evaluator assessed and built readiness for the evaluation. In the second phase, the evaluator worked with five staff members from the coach education department to develop a list of principles guiding the CEP. In the third phase, the evaluator and CEP staff designed and implemented an evaluation of the principles and interpreted the findings to answer evaluation questions and determine forms of use.
The two evaluation questions developed were: (1) How are principles being applied and adapted by the five staff members? (2) Which principles are meaningful to the five staff members? Each staff member completed two-weeks of reflective journaling, followed by one semi-structured interview. The evaluator used narrative analysis to create seven short stories documenting how the staff used the principles in their role. The evaluator and the staff interpreted the stories to answer the evaluation questions and determine forms of use.
Together, the seven stories provide examples of how the principles were applied and adapted across a range of settings, tasks, and staff members. The stories also helped determine which principles were meaningful to the CEP staff. The staff used the findings to make changes to the original list of principles, and to teach others in the program about the principles. This study demonstrates the potential of evaluation theories, collaborative inquiry, and renewed focus on how, or if, findings are used by practitioners.