The pedagogical content intervention of the football coach

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the pedagogical content interventions of the football coaches in the levels of Nursery and Infant schools, based on the coaches' academic degree in physical education and sport. Twelve coaches were videotaped during practice sessions. The instrument used was adapted from the Systematic Analysis of Pedagogical Content Interventions (SAPCI) (GILBERT et al., 1999). Descriptive statistics were performed for all variables and the Mann- Whitney test was used to detect differences between groups. Kappa de Cohen analysis and percentages of agreement demonstrated good intra-observer and inter-observer reliability which confirmed the accuracy of observations. This study led us to the following results: the coaches' pedagogical interventions were mainly about technical subject content, essentially regarding offensive aspects; the interventions performed by the coaches occured preferentially while the players were in action; the majority of coaches' instructions showed a generalist profile and feedback encouragement was the most used category; coaches transmitted most of the information verbally to the players; the coaches' instruction was transmitted, predominantly, to one player only. When comparing groups, the present study showed that the coaches with a degree in physical education and sport transmit more specific instructions and use a more general and specific questioning than non-graduated coaches. Although the coaches, in general, showed an approach centred in the technical aspects of the offensive phase of the game, the coaches with a degree in physical education and sport demonstrated a more specific knowledge of the Football content and they gave the players more space to understand and post problems on the learning contents.