The Coaching Model: A Grounded Assessment of Expert Gymnastic Coaches’ Knowledge

TLDR

The study used an expert‑system framework to elicit, transcribe, and inductively analyze interviews with 17 Canadian high‑performance gymnastics coaches, applying grounded theory to organize their knowledge into properties, categories, and components. The analysis produced six key components—competition, training, organization, coach characteristics, gymnast characteristics and development level, and contextual factors—which were assembled into a comprehensive model of coaches’ knowledge.

Abstract

An expert system approach (Buchanan et al., 1983) was used to identify and conceptualize the knowledge of 17 Canadian expert high-performance gymnastic coaches. The knowledge elicitation process consisted of open-ended questions and various questioning methods to unveil, explore, and prove important information (Patton, 1987; Spradley, 1979) about coaching. All coaches’ interviews were transcribed verbatim, and the unstructured qualitative data were inductively analyzed following the procedures and techniques of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The inductive analysis process allowed the meaning units of the interview transcripts to be regrouped into properties, categories, and components. The components emerging from the analysis consisted of (a) competition, (b) training, (c) organization, (d) coach’s personal characteristics, (e) gymnast’s personal characteristics and level of development, and (f) contextual factors. These components were further developed into a model representing coaches’ knowledge.