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The purpose of this study was to explore the manner in which Australian National Rugby League (NRL) referees developed their craft. Craftmanship represents an enduring, basic human impulse, related to the desire to do a job well for its own sake (Sennett, R. (2008). Prologue: Man as his own maker. In R. Sennett (Ed.), "The craftsman" (pp. 1-15). Yale University Press). Specifically, in this study craftsmanship related to the specialist trade knowledge, work ethics and attributes, motor skills, cognitive processes, pre-match routines, workplace affordances, attention to detail, and dispositional qualities contributing to elite rugby league refereeing performance. Data generation included semi-structured interviews with current NRL referees (n = 8), NRL referee coaches (n = 2), NRL referee advisor/administrator (n = 1), and an immediately retired NRL referee (n = 1); game observations; direct involvement from the lead author in work meetings and game review processes, as well as casual workplace conversations over the immersion period. In addition, each participant completed a survey related to ranking sources of learning they believed contributed to the development of their craft. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically along with the field notes generated through game observations and the immersion period. Findings highlighted how referees used combinations of specialist trade knowledge such as game management, game understanding, context, trusted peer support, and knowledge of rules, in conjunction with their own experiences and desire to learn, to shape and develop their work. Overall, this reinforces the idea that workplace affordances, an individual's personal agency, and the interrelationships between them, are crucial components for understanding how referees develop their craft. Findings from this research might be generative for sport referees and those responsible for the recruitment, professional learning, and development of these key sport actors.

Purpose: Despite the recruitment of foreign sport coaches being a relatively long-standing phenomenon, there is limited research examining the experiences of foreign coaches working in globalised high-performance sport contexts. In examining how foreign coaches learn to perform their craft, we draw upon Billett's [2006. 'Relational Interdependence Between Social and Individual Agency in Work and Working Life.' Mind, Culture, and Activity 13 (1): 53-69. doi:10.1207/s15327884mca1301_5] notion of relational interdependence, which embraces a work-based approach to understanding how migrant coaches learn. Specifically, this lens enables a broad consideration of the interdependent relationship between the foreign coach's agency and the affordances of the host workplace. Method: A single case (embedded) research design was chosen through the purposeful sampling of a sport organisation. The case focused on the learning of Chinese migrant coaches employed within an Australian high-performance coaching workplace (henceforth referred to as the National Sport Organisation; NSO) and involved data collection from three foreign coaches, four athletes, and four administrators employed by the NSO. Through a multiple data collection method (i.e. 1 year of observation, 20 interviews, 1 focus group, and related document collection), information was collected regarding the coaches' practices and learning. A theoretical thematic analysis guided the data analytic procedure with the assistance of MindNode software. Results and discussion: Several major themes were identified in relation to Chinese coaches' learning and practices in the NSO. Overall, Chinese coaches met work requirements through substantial personal learning including aspects related to language (i.e. English), the development of culturally appropriate coaching practices, and enhancement of athletes' training approach. Conclusion: The findings of this research might be generative for foreign coaches and those responsible for the recruitment, professional learning, and development of such coaches. The notion of relational interdependence was an appropriate theoretical lens for research related to the learning of foreign high-performance sport coaches.

Background and purpose: This paper attempts to move the discussion of high-performance coach development from an examination of coaches' volume of experiences towards a consideration of the contribution of the learning experiences that coaches have reported throughout their careers. Furthermore, a discussion of proximal and distal guidance in the development of coaches was investigated. We examined the kinds of learning experiences within the framework of workplace learning and specifically the situated nature of learning and the view that learning occurs through social participation. Method: Nineteen high-performance coaches participated in this study, including 10 scholarship and 9 mentor coaches (MCs). Participants rated a list of 14 developmental activities derived from empirical research on a seven-point Likert scale (0 = not used, 1 = of little value, to 7 = extremely valuable). Each participant coach rated the 14 (guided, unguided) activities in the first two years of their coaching career, middle two years, and final two years. To analyse the data and identify the key trends for both the scholarship and MCs we examined statistical differences between scores for each of the sources the non-parametric Friedman test was used (p < 0.01). Significant ?(superscript 2) results were followed up with the Wilcoxon (two-tailed) T-test (p < 0.05) to identify statistically significant differences between scores at different time intervals. Results: Three key findings emerged from these data: (i) reported increased valuing of a range of developmental experiences over time; (ii) temporal variance in the value of different learning sources at different stages of their careers; and (iii) an acknowledgement of the shift away from an emphasis on proximal learning sources for the MC and the shift towards proximal sources for the scholarship coach.

In undertaking their complicated and multi-faceted work, high performance coaches have previously been shown to be influential in the performance of athletes. It has also been noted that high performance coaches are learners by necessity. However, what remains unclear is how coaches’ learning influences their engagement in sustainable practice. This study draws on three cohorts of full-time high performance coaches employed in Olympic and professional sports throughout Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face and were inductively analysed. The results revealed that the coaches were presented with a variety of opportunities to learn, with the most valued sources being ‘learning on the job’, ‘discussions with others’ and ‘experience as athletes’. These unmediated learning opportunities are critiqued along with other mediated opportunities in relation to notions of sustainability. The dominance of unmediated sources of learning meant that sustainable practice was present but was not assured. Sustainable practice is also discussed in relation to the dominant models of high performance athlete development and the demands of coaching work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been a marked increase in the number of government-funded, high performance institutes and academies of sport within Australia. Given that these organisations employ significant numbers of full-time performance sport coaches, they may be accurately characterised as workplaces. Performance sport coaches have underscored the importance of experience in developing their coaching skill. However, despite wide acceptance of the view that learning occurs everywhere but to different extents and with different efficiency, and the acknowledgement of current national coach education programs as insufficient, no sport coaching research has focused specifically on sport workplaces as sites for learning. This paper will review the current nature of coach development with a view to examining the interaction between what the workplace (institute/academy) affords the individual and the personal agency of the individual (high performance sports coaches). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]