The Game Sense Approach: 25 years on

 The Game Sense approach (GSA) was introduced to Australian sport during Australian Sports Commission (ASC) national workshops in 1996, prompting coach education providers and national sport development resources to emphasise the approach, and its embrace of increased player involvement in the coaching process. Despite that the Game Sense approach remains a foregrounded feature of the Sport Australia Playing for Life Philosophy and the pedagogical model of the Sport Australia Sporting Schools program, research on the penetration of the GSA into 'everyday' coaching and physical education teaching of the focus area of games and sport is sparse. The little research there is, and my experience as a coach educator, suggests to me that the idea of 'game sense games' as a teaching tool is prominent in many sport coaching programs, sport development courses, and physical education courses in schools and universities in Australia, however, many of us are running pretty much the same professional development and coach development sessions on the Game Sense approach as we were in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Dave Reynolds and I discussed this in our chapter in the recent publication: Perspectives on Game Based Coaching (available here). 

One Australian sport where coach pedagogy was looked at closely is tennis through the work of Mitch Hewitt. His survey of 208 tennis coaches found most coaches reported using predominantly Practice and Command style teaching (as described by Mosston's Spectrum of Teaching Styles), meaning that coaching was largely reproductive in the nature of what was being asked of the players being coached (see here for this paper). This study of tennis coaches continued from the survey to observe 12 junior tennis coaches. They were observed for three coaching sessions. The 12 coaches were observed implementing two landmark teaching styles from Mosston's Spectrum. These were landmark teaching style Command Style-A and landmark teaching style Practice Style-B. A copy of this paper is available here. As part of this projects broad research agenda, 13 coaches were interviewed about their coaching practice. The results highlighted a lack of knowledge concerning the theoretical and practical application of various teaching styles required for coaching tennis to junior players, especially with regard to game-based coaching tenets foregrounded in tennis coach development courses. The coaches lacked self-awareness with regard to their own coaching performance and were incapable of accurately describing the reasons why they implement particular ways of coaching. Coaches used an assortment of terms to identify the way they coach and that their decision to employ certain ways of coaching did not alter as a function of the age group, skill level or ability of the players they were coaching. Observing and/or discussing aspects of coaching with a mentor as well as playing experience had a greater influence on their coaching behaviour than attending an accreditation course (to read more, see here for the paper). A final study looked at believed practice via an interview and the observed practice of a tennis coach who indicated a preference for game-based coaching. Practice style and Command style were again the dominant coaching styles. In contrast, the Game Sense approach has been associated with a guided discovery teaching style, similar to the description of Mosston’s Style F – Guided Discovery (Breed & Spittle, 2011; Light, 2014; Pill, 2012) (To read this study, see here)

There is a lot of practical scholarship that exists, and continues to be published, about the 'how' and 'why' of implementation of the Game Sense approach in Australian sport and physical education, and global contexts. However, it remains unclear as to the degree to which after 25 years the Game Sense approach has moved from innovation to expectation in coaching and sport delivery into physical education generally and within specific sports despite the approach remaining prominent in coach education and sport in schools programs.