Exploring the Conceptualizations and Utilizations of Learning Theories in Sport Settings

The purpose of this study was to identify how integrating learning theories into the design of a formal university course helps facilitate students’ resources, goals, and orientations (Schoenfeld, 2011) of learning theories for their future career work in coaching, sport psychology consulting, or other sport-related professions. Sixteen students signed up for a fifteen-week fall semester course at a Mid-Atlantic university in America and were asked to annotate, create, and reflect upon examples of future work in their desired fields for their three major written assignments in the course. Students reflected on their learning experience through pre-and-post semi-structured interviews and most stated that they benefitted from the way the course was designed with learning theories in mind and that it helped their understanding and application of learning theories. Results showed large increases in resources associated with learning theories, changes in goals from being ego-centric to learner-centric and shifts in orientations to recognize how helpful learning theories could be to participants’ future careers. Future directions include increasing the number of face-to-face meetings each week, making this course available for Master’s level students, and improving clarity around the definition of orientations shared with participants from Schoenfeld’s (2011) framework. Practical implications include adding learning theories courses to sport-related programs which could increase the quality of the work that coaches, sport psychology consultants, and other sport-related professionals will engage in with their athletes after taking a learning theories course.