‘Reflective Practice for Sports Development Professionals: Notes from the Field’

Dr. Marc Keech, Chelsea School, University of Brighton

Studying Sports Development: Researching, teaching and writing in the field

25-26th April, 2008Brunel University, West London

Aim and Context

• To identify and evaluate key issues which current professionals face in working as sports development professional using reflective practice as a professional tool of learning.

• MA Sport Development at the University of Brighton. The course contains a module entitled ‘Reflective Practice for Sport Development Professionals’.

• Increasing divergence of sport development professionals and their work.

Reflective Practice

• Reflective practice highlights the importance that, to be a ‘highly

qualified, adaptable, competent professional’ (Taks, 2003; 97)

sports development professionals must ‘continually readdress

their skills and abilities through the process of reflective and

critically reflective practice’ (Smith and Stewart, 1999: 10).

• ‘It should be possible to reflect critically upon the social, political

and economic context of practice’ (Edwards, 1999:

75).

• ‘Context-based competence’?

Methodological Issues

• ‘Dealing with persons, in the ‘real world’, is typically not

repeatable, as exactly the same situation rarely recurs.

Therefore one cannot readily ‘cancel out’ either what is

common or what is different. The central difficulty here

lies in identifying the relevant aspects of the situation’

• The ability to analyse personal practice, problem-solving

through one’s actions and understanding the ‘application

of critical theory to the examination of professional

practice’ (Edwards, 1999: 70)

5 key themes for sports development professionals

1. The application of reflective practice to professional working environments

2. Strategic Planning, Management and Leadership

3. Equity

4. Responding to Policy in Practice

5. Future of the Profession and what it means to be a Sport Development Professional

Conclusions

• Benefits• Advantages• Problems and problem based learning• The possible place of RP in professional development

frameworks

• ‘The space to discuss wider, generic issues is very limited in the professional world and it has been invaluable to do this. It is so easy to get bogged down with “delivery” and these discussions help to remind me that I am really inspired by the profession in which I work’.