Coaches Corner

The following is a brief literature review prepared by Dr Daniel Greenwood, in response to a question asked by Mark Lebedew. The only credit I can take for it is that I introduced them, and have a couple of spare moments to post it. Literature Summary - The use of ‘Names’ in Learning Our names are inextricably tied to our identity and our origin, and thus using them brings great influence (Cosgriff et al., 2013). When a teacher uses a student’s name it demonstrates mutual respect, reducing barriers between teacher and student. When considering positive feedback, the use of names makes compliments more sincere and genuine (Turrill, 2008) Our brain registers that when our name is said, someone wants our attention. When we hear our name we turn towards the speaker, it has been ingrained in us so long it’s an instinctual reaction. People will turn their attention toward you every time their name is mentioned, even if they aren’t listening. Because of the instinctual response

Effective communication is a popular theme in sport at the moment. Or maybe it just is with me. I seem to be spending a lot of time thinking, and talking to athletes and coaches, about how to get better at communication and feedback. There are two areas in particular I've been working on: Feedback, and Scouting Meetings. Feedback/Changing The first question has to be, what is the purpose of coaching feedback 1 ? Answer:  to affect specific behavioural change in an athlete . But we need to be careful. Often the logic is: "I need to affect behavioural change, therefore I need to provide feedback." But feedback is not the only way to affect change. In fact, sometimes the opposite (no feedback) is actually a better option. So, to recap, we have a tool which we know can be used to achieve what we want to achieve, but we also need to consider that the absence of this tool might be more effective. So what's the answer? The answer is, it is far to simplistic to