Action research

The exploration of enablers and obstacles was based on an action research (AR) process where I collaborated with Adam, a Danish U17 elite football coach from the club Aalborg BK (AaB). In the AR process, which comprised cycles of design meetings and practice experiments, we used a range of creativity-theoretical concepts as tools to play with to design new exercises that could facilitate creative actions, as defined by SS1. Instead of studying the practices of a coach who already worked with creativity based on academic frameworks, an AR approach was chosen to magnify the information content of the case.

Further, the AR approach allowed us to focus on an individual coach’s reality, how he operates within and interprets his environment and the process by which meanings and knowledge are used to guide his actions. These aspects are keys to understand underlying features of coaches’ beliefs and behaviours (Harvey, Cushion, & Massa-Gonzalez, 2010; Potrac, Jones, & Armour, 2002). As a well-known expression coined by Kurt Lewin, the father of action research, reminds us, “the best way to understand something is to try to change it” (cited by Greenwood & Levin, 2007, p. 18). Hence, AR could be a viable way to meet Cushion and Partington’s (2016) appeal for more research that questions existing coaching ideology and valuates the underpinning assumptions rather than reproducing extant discourses. Cushion and Partington (2016) argue that extant research often downplays the influence of social structure on

coaches’ dispositions and overemphasise coaches’ reflexivity and agency. Exposing coaches to alternative practice forms may challenge their beliefs about learning, established practices and entrenched cultures (Harvey et al., 2010) and thus be an indicator of the underlying assumptions that inform practice and impact how creative activities are perceived.

Described with Reason and Bradbury (2001) ways of knowing in AR, my propositional knowing (i.e., abstract concepts) was used to question taken for granted beliefs, formulate alternate perspectives and facilitate practical knowing (i.e., how to design for creativity), but Adam’s experiential knowing (e.g., tacit knowledge; lived experiences) could entail defensive inquiries protecting against discovery of the new and different. Also, Adam’s presentational knowing (e.g., stories and images of creative players) could make him stick to old stories and thereby recreate extant beliefs and practices. Although repeatedly meeting resistance, I continually sought, following Reason (2006), different ways to challenge assumptions and engaged in re-description (i.e., express Adam’s stories of creativity in new ways and from other perspectives) to deepen the experiential basis of understanding.

When initiating the AR process, I had played football at a recreational level for 24 years, but besides my degrees in Sport Sciences, I had no coaching education. This external perspective is important in AR since local traditions, assumptions and routines may lead practitioners to overlook important resources for change (Greenwood & Levin, 2007). Still, my familiarity to sports in general and creativity in particular, put me in an insider-outsider-insider position (i.e., insider to sports, outsider to the particular club, insider to creativity) with each of these positions bringing benefits and disadvantages. What I was trying to do was to capitalise on the advantages of knowing the domain and getting to understand (from a certain distance) the actual social field I was entering.

As Thorpe and Olive (2016) argue, the key here is that “whether observing fields from the inside, outside or somewhere in between, each position must be considered in terms of its specific possibilities, challenges and limitations” (p. 130). Since lacking authenticity and not sharing experiential base may be limitations for outsiders, it was important be open-minded, honest and curious, respecting Adam’s football knowledge. Considering the plastic and pluralist worldview of pragmatism (section 3.1.), there are multiple, socially embedded but changeable realities. This was a resource for the AR (i.e., visit each other’s perspectives to be inspired), but could also lead to disagreement, e.g., due to denials of otherness, lacking openness to learn and unwillingness to risk prejudgments (Bernstein, 1989). Rather than confronting the other as an opponent and exposing their absurdities and weaknesses, pragmatism calls for dialogical responses in cases of conflict, that is “seeking common ground in which we can understand our differences” (p. 16) and thereby clarify disagreements – not necessarily reach consensus.

More specifically, my position was defined as a “friendly outsider”. To paraphrase Greenwood and Levin (2007) the friendly outsider is not a boss or a director, but a coach. Hence, a guiding idea was to treat Adam as a talent with unexploited potentials in nurturing creativity, by inviting him to co-generate new action possibilities and

enabling him to take charge of the meaning making process. In this regard, vital process skill was to demonstrate integrity (while avoiding to go native) in terms of an authentic interest in the success of the local football community, as well as a

“willingness to celebrate the capacities and action of local people and an active appreciation of the possibility for change that exist locally” (Greenwood & Levin, 2007, p. 126).

Moreover, a possibility of being an outsider was to avoid the “assumption of shared distinctiveness”, leading participants to not fully explain their experience (Dwyer &

Buckle, 2009, p. 58). In the present process, it was not difficult to separate our personal experiences, and both of us understood that we were coming from different places. However, we faced what Greenwood and Levin (2007) defined as “the co-generative challenge” (p. 107), that is, to take advantage of our differences, find the common third possible space where interests overlap and lead to meaningful ideas for both parties: “Both sides have a complex web of intentions and interpretations of the structures and processes they are engaged in” (p. 107). Still, we were able to gain understanding of each other’s’ perspectives through our interactions. As an outsider, I gained insights in the conceptions, pedagogics, culture and politics in the field, while Adam, as an insider, were helped to question some of his taken-for-granted beliefs.

2.4.3. RESULTS

As implied by thematic analysis, these analytical outputs (elaborated in SS3) are

“creative and interpretive stories about the data, produced at the intersection of the researcher’s theoretical assumptions, their analytic resources and skill, and the data themselves” (Braun & Clarke, 2019, p. 6). The following potentials were encountered (SS3, p. 13):

1. Ownership: Provide sovereignty, so players can make propositions and solutions 2. Curiosity: Inspire the players to “search for and attempt new things” (p. 14) on their own 3. De-robotization: Prevent that elite structures entail inflexible, stereotypical playing styles 4. Trademarks: Enhance players’ chance to find unique ways to use their abilities in the game 5. Playful atmosphere: Stimulate relaxed attitudes towards making mistakes and inefficiency 6. Rare (inter)actions: facilitate wow-moments and extraordinary solutions during training

To enhance the chance to encounter such emancipative potentials I presented a myriad of ideas as “anticipations of possible solutions […] of some continuity or connection of an activity and a consequence which has not as yet shown itself” (Dewey, 1916, p.

160). Yet, many of the imagined ways to facilitate creative actions were discarded by Adam, so they could not be acted upon during practice experiments. Consequently, these proposals did not “guide and organize further observations, recollections and experiments” (p. 160). Instead, the process was overturned by Adam, when he advanced the notion of appearing creativity as the most viable way to integrate creativity in football practice. This led to reproducing extant practical perspectives, focusing on effective surprises in matches rather than unusual experiments during training. Basically, this consisted of coach-led generation of tactical principles to guide the teams’ planned improvisation. This kind of creativity surprises the opponent, but is based on agreements and can be rehearsed. The following obstacles limited the process of generating and using creativity exercises (SS3, p. 13):

1. The football-specific curriculum: Many other agendas reduced available tome

2. The tournament: Match-analysis and -preparation more important than trying new things 3. Result- and performance pressure: Obliged to conduct efficient and meaningful training 4. Beliefs about efficient coaching: No room for learning goals based on creative abilities 5. Demands for transferable actions: Evade inappropriate solutions and unrealistic situations 6. Reluctance towards unconventional artefacts: Cannot include tools from other sports 7. Conventions about age-related training: Technical peculiarities are for younger players 8. Views of players’ perception of good training: Competiveness and focus on good decisions 9. Players’ reception of alternative exercises: Fixed mindsets reject the alternative activities 10. Requirements for integration: Cannot change or deviate from established practices 11. Demands to maintain competitive elements: Preference for games with opposition 12. Football-specific views about creativity: Maximize surplus to help players appear creative 13. Sedimented beliefs about creative players: Cannot change creative abilities substantially

Further, and adding to SS2, which expose the dynamic interrelatedness between beliefs and practices, SS3 elucidates how the interaction between personal interests (e.g., playing aesthetic football) and capacities (e.g., tactical football knowhow), temporal conditions (e.g., bad results; offseason) and cultural features (e.g., what is regarded as good football) determine the applicability of creativity exercises. Hence, SS3 indicates that result orientation and “cultural conventions about quality coaching”

(SS3, p. 30) may limit coaches’ possibilities to adopt new ideas. Instead of investing in the unpredictable strategy of nurturing creativity, “cultural and political aspects led the coach to focus on winning from using more predictable strategies” (SS3, p. 30).

2.4.4. CONTRIBUTION

The potentials and obstacles may be used to reflect on one’s own views about creativity, its meaning and development in team ball sports. Moreover, the study outlines a range of questions planning to adopt creativity-enhancing coaches can reflect on and ask their peers. Also, the AR entailed six principles for designing creativity exercise (SS3, p. 26):

1. As many variants as possible: Solve a repeated, technical task with quantity.

2. Improvised game scenarios: Rotational games with recurrent game scenarios.

3. Planning and breaking out: Small groups plan new ways to surprise opponents.

4. Instant coach-, self- or peer-created problems: Stimulate spontaneous solutions.

5. Unhabitualisation: Collective or individualized blocks of habitual (inter)actions.

6. Secret missions: Creation of game situations where rare solutions may be used.

Hence, SS3 provides a detailed portrait of creativity-nurturing activities which involve the perspective of the coach, and the interests pursued and challenges he faced when collaborating with me to design and apply new activities. These insights in an elite youth coach’s perception and application of creativity exercises not only illuminate why it is hard to work with creativity in practice, but also why it may be vital to do so. Hence, awareness about the potentials and obstacles, albeit context, person and time dependent, may be vital to enhance the achievements of future interventions studies and other endeavours to implement creativity-nurturing activities.

For researchers’ and practitioners’ future endeavours to facilitate creative actions, it was inter alia suggested that “more time, effort and frequent application of creativity

exercises may be vital to reinforce coaches’ understanding of the underpinnings and emancipative potentials of creativity” (SS3, p. 25) and thereby widen the boundary for what is seen as efficient coaching. To support these processes, researchers should develop more practical concepts and principles (i.e., concrete ways to facilitate creativity) to be implemented in coach education courses on creativity. The impact of such programs might be enhanced with more research-based arguments for why creativity exercises and creative abilities are beneficial for performance. Such arguments should emphasize the players’ perspectives on the importance of being creative. Also, for future work, such arguments could be vital to make it more meaningful for players to engage in the atypical activities required when working with creativity. Starting to apply creative activities at younger ages might help players become more open to alternative approaches at later stages. Involving the wider coaching community is vital to minimize the number of peers that oppose new ideas.

Based on SS3, one could raise the question of what would have happened if working with coaches from younger age groups (or performance levels), who were not so bound up by results and tactical principles, and e.g., focused on the learning- and engagement-oriented metaphors from SS2. As exposed by SS3, Adam often argued that my ideas were more appropriate for the younger age groups in AaB’s elite system, e.g., since these already focused on “me-and-the-ball” activities and doing a wealth of peculiar skills (involving match-irrelevant ones) to enhance technical and coordinative capacities (see SS2).