Project-based CPD for coaches

Youth academy coaches play a crucial role in the football ecosystem. Given the speed at which the game is developing, continuous professional development (CPD) is an essential learning tool and, by extension, hugely important to coaches’ career progression. In this presentation, Dr Liam McCarthy sets out some of the benefits of a highly customised and responsive project-based approach to CPD.

• Existing development frameworks for coaches are useful, but sometimes struggle to reflect the multi-facetted role of a coach.
  
  
• Project-based, self-directed CPD can allow coaches to investigate specific issues they encounter in their work and encourage their development as individuals.
  
  
• Analysing how students are using these project-based development opportunities might help practitioners determine which issues matter most to coaches.

Part 1: The problem
Existing CPD frameworks like the coaching licence system are useful, but there is often a temptation for coaches to focus on achieving the qualification rather than prioritising their own ongoing development. To solve this problem, the English Premier League is exploring alternative learning opportunities, including the use of two-year, work-based CPD projects undertaken in academies. For these projects to be meaningful, they need to focus on real-world problems that matter to coaches, and give them the freedom to find their own solutions. 

Part 2: The solution: project-based learning
The aim of a project-led approach is to develop coaches’ knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes, and professional practice in a coaching context, and in a way that reflects their role. With that aim in mind, coaches are encouraged to focus on the issues that matter most to them in their day-to-day work. Once they have identified a suitable project, they are put in charge of their own learning, conducting self-directed investigations and experiments with the aim of solving problems they see on the training ground. 

Part 3: Recommendations and next steps
The project-based approach to CPD has prompted some fundamental questions about the nature of professional development, such as how best to invest resources and recruit coaches into programmes of this nature. Dr McCarthy and his colleagues are also planning to investigate exactly which topics coaches are choosing to research during their projects, and to incorporate that insight into future development opportunities.

Paper citation and link
McCarthy, L., & Roberts, C. (2024). A Project-Led Framework for Coach Development in English Men’s Professional Football: A Premier League Case Study. International Sport Coaching Journal, 11(3), 446-456. https://doi.org/10.1123/iscj.2023-0015.

You can read the full text here.