ABSTRACT
In earlier editions of this text, we made the claim that assessment in sports coaching had not been a ‘hot topic’. Despite the centrality of assessment to what it is that coaches do, over two decades later the situation seems to have changed little. So as to address this paucity, we draw on the work of Hay et al., (2012) who characterise this lack of empirical focus as a “significant oversight that both fails to recognise key aspects of pedagogy and learning, and overlooks opportunities for optimising coach and athlete development” (p.189). Accordingly, the approach in this chapter is to use a sociocultural perspective to highlight the complexities associated with assessment, and to discuss what this could mean for coaches’ practice. This chapter begins with an introduction to a sociocultural perspective on assessment, discussing its principal aspects, before moving to notions of assessment for learning, assessment efficacy, and authentic assessment. Links between assessment and ability are also established and contextualised within a culminating coaching narrative.
