My video coach - a phenomenographic interpretation of athlete perceptions of coaching through a live video feed

Abstract

Despite the numerous reported benefits of implementing technology-enhanced learning (TEL) strategies in sport coaching, and advancements in the ‘user-friendliness’ of technologies available to human movement educators, learner perceptions of such pedagogies are yet to be fully understood. In an effort to address this, the current article employed a phenomenographic methodology to present the variation of conceptions, or understandings, of athletes involved in a ‘Video Coach (VC)’ project – whereby a coach and athletes connected regularly via video calling technology during a preparation phase for high performance competition. The current article builds on a procedural account of the VC project by exploring the ways in which participants’ discerned the various elements of the encounter. Here, phenomenography, an emerging research methodology in the sport coaching literature, offered the advantage of providing different understandings to a contemporary coaching approach. Upon interpreting the individual ways in which the phenomenon (the VC encounter) was experienced, the outcome space demonstrates the interrelatedness of athletes’ perceptions by showing that it was considered a necessary, albeit an ‘authoritative’ observation tool, beneficial in absence of alternative arrangements or conventional (read: face-to-face) coaching approaches. In this sense, the VC project was a ‘needs-must’ approach for participants, and was valued as such. This study provides a starting point for future research, where coaches and researchers could explore the benefits and drawbacks of a VC in a range of other human movement contexts according to athlete perception(s).