ABSTRACT
Interest in sport coaching has grown significantly in the new millennium in line with coaching being perceived as a legitimate profession around the world, and an emerging field of academic study. These factors have resulted in an increase in the volume and scope of scholarly activity related to it (Rangeon et al. 2012; Lyle & Cushion 2010). In a recent review and citation network analysis of coaching research that included 3,891 references, Rangeon et al. (2012) found that:
■ some of the most prominent sport coaching research articles have been traced back to the early 1970s;
■ the yearly publication rate of coaching related research has increased dramatically; ■ there are over 1,000 research studies on sport coaching published in peer-
reviewed English-language journals; ■ forty-one publications were identified as ‘key publications’ – the top three being
a book (Sports Coaching Concepts: A Framework for Coaches’ Behaviour (Lyle 2002)) and two research papers (Cushion et al.’s (2003) article on coach education; and the ‘coaching model’, published by Côté et al. (1995));
■ numerous overviews of the ‘coaching science’ literature are now available (e.g. Côté & Gilbert 2009; Gilbert & Trudel 2004; Horn 2008; Lyle & Cushion 2010); and
■ “coaching science is highly influenced by a small set of key publications and researchers” (p. 103).
