One youth soccer coach’s maiden implementation of the Tactical Games Model

Abstract

This paper utilizes a collaborative action research design to investigate one youth soccer coach’s maiden implementation of the Tactical Games Model (TGM). Consequently, this study aims to add to the paucity of research regarding coaches use of Game-Centered Approaches (GCAs), in particular the TGM. The study took place over eight, one-hour coaching sessions, which were conducted with a U12 competitive (travel) soccer team. The coach, Ian, was a licensed soccer coach and an undergraduate physical education student who had previously been exposed to the TGM in his university coursework. Data were collected through observation of model benchmarks in three of the TGM sessions (2, 4 and 6), the completion of Post-Session Teaching Reflective Analyses (PTRA; Dyson, 1994) and three semi-structured interviews. Model benchmark data were analyzed descriptively while PTRA and interview data were analyzed using the Lexminacer text mining software to generate themes and concepts. Findings showed that model benchmark fidelity improved as the coach became more familiar with TGM in his coaching setting. The main concepts generated from the Leximancer analysis were: ‘players’, ‘session’, ‘time’, ‘games’, and ‘physical’, which suggests a major shift in coaching practice occurred in alignment with Light’s (2013) four features of game-centered pedagogy. This current study makes two main contributions. First, it adds further contextual evidence of the benefits and challenges of incorporating TGM into other neophyte youth sports coaches’ practice. Second, it serves as a methodological template for further investigations into the micropedagogies of youth sport coaches’ practice when using GCAs such as the TGM.