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David Stephens

Headshot of David Stephens For media enquiries please contact the Press Team

PhD Researcher

Faculty:
Faculty of Science and Engineering
School:
Psychology and Sport Science
Location:
Cambridge
Research Supervision:
Yes

[email protected]
LinkedIn
Twitter: @davestephens7

Research interests

Thesis title:

Educating the educators: understanding sport coach educators’ practice and influence on coaches’ learning.

Supervisory Team

Dr Anna Stodter
Dr Matthew Timmis

Research Group

David is a member of our Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences.

Summary of Research

David's research is a longitudinal study following the journey of trainee coach educators within a sport governing body from initial recruitment, through their training and development, to tracking their behaviours as they gain experience ‘in the field’. Data will be collected from surveying individuals on their biographies, analysing documentation, systematic observation of delivery and reflective interviews.

Formal coach education has been widely criticised in the literature as having low value (e.g. Harvey, Cushion, Cope & Muir, 2013; Watts & Cushion, 2017). However, the role of the coach educator in the process has been largely unexplored. The aim of this research is to gain insight into the typical biographies and behaviours of educators to better understand whether they are being prepared adequately to improve coach learning.

Recent presentations and conferences

  • UK Coaching Applied Research Conference (2019) Derby
  • Cluster for Research in Coaching Conference (2019) University of Worcester
  • Doctoral School Annual Research Student Conference (2019) ARU