Malaysia Football Coaches: Development Characteristics

The defining development pathways of “A”, “B” and “C” licenced coaches in Malaysia, were examined from the perspective of identifying critical issues and challenges. This research was guided by principles of evolved grounded theory (EGT), (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Twelve participants were recruited based on the principles of theoretical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), eventually a cross section of “A”, “B” and “C” licenced coaches were recruited that adequately represented the various levels. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to explore how participants organised and understood their coaching experiences was used with a recursive design whereby newly identified themes could be explored in subsequent interviews. Furthermore, probe questions were also used to explore ideographic themes and issues relevant to each interviewee. Initially data analysis involved creating electronic written transcripts of the participant’s answer during the interviews. The data underwent systematically construction, deconstruction and reconstruction stages. As expected, stages of development emerged as a central overarching category. Based on the analysis, the following four stages of development emerged, a) pre-accreditation, b) participation, c) developmental and d) performance. These four stages of development formed the central structure of the constructed grounded theory.