"They're in every breath we take": Emotions and emotion management in the everyday 'doing' of netball coach educators work

Abstract

The attention paid to emotion in coaching has gathered impetus in recent years but empirical research in the coaching literature continues to be limited. The role of emotion in coach education remains notably absent and we currently know very little about the emotional experiences, practices and decisions of coach educators. This thesis begins to address this gap in knowledge by providing original and significant insights into the role of emotion in netball coach educators' pedagogical practices when delivering coach education courses. Data was collected through diaries, in-depth semi-structured interviews with four coach educators, and my own autoethnographical accounts. An iterative analysis of data was undertaken in a process of collection, analysis and representation comprised of etic and emic readings. Symbolic interactionist and poststructural theorisations were principally drawn from the work of Hochschild (1983), Thoits (1986; 2004; 2011), Bolton, (2005) and Zembylas (2005) in the understanding and sensemaking of coach educators' emotional experiences. My analysis highlighted coach educators' emotional displays were influenced by four overarching rules relating to happiness, fear, disappointment and anger and that emotion display rules are learnt through mechanisms of wider experiences. In line with the learn emotion rules, analysis also revealed that coach educators enacted a range of intra- and inter-emotion management techniques. Finally, the findings highlighted the motives that drive the engagement in emotional management and the associated costs and benefits of its enactment. The findings highlight the centrality of emotion to coach educators' pedagogical practice and interactions and raises the need to consider the place and potential integration of emotion in the preparation and training of coach educators.

Date of Award	16 Jun 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Edge Hill University
Supervisor	LEE NELSON (Director of Studies), ANDY SMITH (Supervisor) & Paul Potrac (Supervisor)