Coaches’ perceptions of opportunities for athlete-led practice activities

Royden Radowits, Stuart G. Wilson, Bradley W. Young

Self-regulatory processes are important for skill development (McCardle et al., 2019), and athlete-led practice (ALP) – practice initiated and/or directed by athletes – might comprise key opportunities to engage these processes (Young et al., 2024). While research has started to describe the extent that ALP occurs without coach-supervision (Bain et al., 2020), little is known about the scope of ALP during coach-supervised practices. As part of a larger mixed-methods study on self-regulated sport practice, this study explored coaches’ perceptions of the role of ALP during supervised practices. 101 Canadian coaches (57 men, 44 women; age range = 15- 74 yrs) completed a seven-question survey to report on ‘agreement’ and ‘frequency’, separately, regarding opportunities for ALP. Between-group comparisons and correlations described aspects of ALP in relation to coach characteristics and coaching contexts (ps < .05). Coaches reported that they ‘slightly agreed’ with their athletes having opportunities for ALP (M = 5.05, SD = 1.11) and that these opportunities occurred ‘often’ (M = 4.59, SD = 0.99). Agreement and frequency responses moderately correlated (r = 0.49), and descriptive analyses showed differences in their distributions. Individual-sport (vs. team-sport) coaches, and coaches of provincial-level athletes (vs. city-level) agreed more with ALP during practice. Men coaches agreed more and reported more frequent ALP before, and after practice. Coaches of ‘train to train’ (vs. broader LTAD groups) athletes gave less space for ALP. No differences were found according to the frequency of athletes’ training and athlete gender. These findings help describe contexts/conditions that shape ALP opportunities within coaches’ programs.