The Self-Monitoring of Expert Sport Instructors

Abstract

This study identified the major facets of professional practice monitored by expert teachers. Specifically the skills and knowledge expert sport instructors regularly scrutinized in order to improve their teaching and coaching were categorized and examined. Data were collected from 31 teachers listed by Golf Magazine as the Top 100 Golf Instructors in America. The teachers listed aspects of their teaching they regularly monitored in assessing their own strengths and weaknesses. Data were analyzed in three steps. First, responses were reviewed to identify the characteristics monitored by the teachers. Second, characteristics grouped under each theme were reviewed and clustered into representative categories. Third, all categories were reviewed to ensure every characteristic identified by the teachers was accounted for by theme or category, and that the investigators unanimously agreed to the coding of each characteristic From this process, five themes were constructed that represented the activities and qualities most often monitored by expert teachers: (a) skills (i.e., things teachers do), (b) knowledge base (i.e., things teachers know), (c) personal characteristics (i.e., things teachers are), (d) philosophy (i.e., things teachers believe), and (e) tools (i.e., things teachers use).