ABSTRACT
Traditionally, coaching intervention has been based on subjective observations of athletes. However, several studies have shown that such observations are not only unreliable but also inaccurate. Franks and Miller (1986) compared coaching observations to eyewitness testimony of criminal events. Using methodology gained from applied memory research, they showed that international level soccer coaches could recollect only 30 per cent of the key factors that determined successful soccer performance during one match. In another study, a forced choice recognition paradigm was used by Franks (1993), who found that experienced gymnastic coaches were not significantly better than novice coaches in detecting differences in two sequentially presented front hand-spring performances. An additional finding of interest in this study was that experienced coaches produced many more false positives (detecting a difference when none existed) than their novice counterparts, and were also very confident in their decisions, even when wrong. This finding led to the speculation that the training undertaken by coaches predisposes them to seek out and report errors in performances even when none exist.
