Jamie Taylor

This paper explores the potential of the Active Inference Framework (AIF) and Predictive Processing (PP) to advance our understanding of skill and motor learning with a key focus on introducing these concepts to coaches and highlighting their practical implications. Conceptual frameworks such as Information Processing (IP) and Ecological Dynamics (ED) have contributed significantly to the field of skill acquisition. Despite recent efforts to reconcile these perspectives, however, their fundamentally different theoretical foundations concerning perception, cognition and learning processes pose substantial challenges for integration. Although ED has made valuable contributions through its focus on perception‐action coupling and direct interaction with the environment, it involves adopting a radical ontological stance that emphasises rejecting traditional cognitive constructs that can complicate practical applications in coaching. Conversely, IP's reliance on concepts such as stored motor programs and the view of the brain as a computer‐like processor can limit its ability to account for the dynamic, emergent nature of skill acquisition in real‐world contexts. We suggest that AIF offers a parsimonious perspective, accommodating the dynamic, embodied and enactive nature of skill acquisition without the necessity of committing to either framework's specific assumptions. This perspective provides practitioners with a coherent and flexible framework for understanding and designing skill learning interventions, offering a practically useful account of skill acquisition for coaching practice.

Category 1 Premier League academies operate within a clearly defined audit framework with explicit requirements for staffing, coach qualifications, and player development processes. While such structures support professionalisation, they also raise important questions about how coaching is recognised and developed. Drawing on data from 124 full-time coaches employed across 18 Category 1 academies, this study examines relationships between football qualifications, formal education, and coaches’ self-perceptions of their coaching proficiency. Specifically, we sought to: (i) describe the role profiles, coaching experience, football qualifications, and educational backgrounds of full-time Category 1 academy coaches; and (ii) examine how coaches’ self-perceptions of knowledge, skills, and attributes vary by qualification, role, and educational background. Our aim was to inform broader debates about professionalisation and the development of coaching expertise. Our findings suggest that the workforce is highly qualified, experienced, and formally educated. However, differences in self-perceptions were limited. Pro Licence holders reported higher scores than UEFA A/AYA and UEFA B Licence holders, while the only significant educational-status contrast was between the postgraduate certificate/diploma group and the foundation-degree-or-lower group. Self-perceptions were more closely associated with football qualification than with professional role. While increasing professionalisation in sport coaching may be desirable, the development of coaching expertise cannot be reduced to qualification attainment, role status, or years of experience.

Coach learning has long been a subject of debate, particularly in relation to how learning experiences are designed and how they contribute to enhanced coaching practice (Abraham & Collins, 1998; P...

The journey through youth sport is often associated with changing motivations and increasing emphasis on competition. Using rapid, semi-structured interviews with 140 participants (players, parents and coaches from under-13, under-15 and under-18), we sought to better understand the youth sport experience in Gaelic games following the journey from modified games to competitive programmes, through the intended-enacted-experienced, and hidden curriculum framework. Two themes were developed following a reflexive thematic analysis, ‘it's the perceived seriousness’ and ‘it means a lot to us’. Findings suggest that the administration of games, the intended curriculum, was a source of frustration. We suggest that games programmes require attention and articulation by governing bodies to provide meaningful games for players. However, the greatest impact on experienced curriculum seemed to be interactions between players and coaches, the enacted curriculum, highlighting the need to support coaches in meeting participant needs. Furthermore, community was at the heart of the experience, perhaps explained by the cultural importance of Gaelic games. This led to acceptance of certain coaching practices, detrimental to the individual, as being necessary for the betterment of the team, an indication of the hidden curriculum.

The junior-to-senior transition presents persistent difficulty for elite sport, often exacerbated by poor integration between talent development and high-performance environments. This case study evaluated Munster Rugby's integrated model, which merged the academy and senior squad into a single training group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 participants (academy players/coaches, senior players/coaches) and data were analysed using a deductive–inductive thematic content approach grounded in talent development environment frameworks. Five themes were generated to represent how the integrated model influenced the coaching situation: not one track, is this right, right now?, looking ahead, pulling in the same direction, and rubbing shoulders. Our analysis suggested that full-time senior-level training accelerated learning and facilitated earlier selection opportunities. However, these outcomes depended on continuous individual support for younger players and having senior players as role models. Outcomes also varied; while some players adapted, others struggled with the demands associated with preparing a team to win, compromising active experimentation and expansive skill learning. The findings suggest that in Munster's integrated system, the dominant logic of winning had the potential to cannibalize the subordinate logic of development unless systemically accompanied by structured, individualised support and deliberate opportunities for error-based learning. They also underline the need for organisations to manage the inherent tension between short-term results and long-term player development.

Objective assessment and monitoring of physical performance in soccer players are mandated features of practice in English soccer academies. Based on these approaches, our interest was to investigate and compare the longitudinal physical performance profiles of those players that had eventually been successful and unsuccessful at the two highest levels, becoming male professional English Premier League and Championship level soccer players. The specific research objective was to investigate the between player variability and predictive validity of physical assessment measures against eventual playing outcome. A total of 297 male youth participants (born between 1999 to 2006) affiliated to three category one academies were tracked for eight years across six objective physical tests. Data were analysed by a series of mixed method ANOVAs, comparing outcome with age. Canonical Discriminant Function Coefficients and the TRIPOD Statement were applied for transparent reporting of prediction efficacy. Results suggest that physical characteristics offer little or no discriminatory power. We conclude by offering guidance for academies’ interpretation and usage of physical data.