(Coach) Learning about (skill) learning: epistemology versus pedagogy
- Jordan Cassidy
- 10 minutes ago
- 9 min read
My PhD work is centered on the role of a skill acquisition specialist. There is much to be said about the role, but this post will focus on two different intentions of skill acquisition specialist – facilitating athlete skill acquisition and facilitating coach learning in athlete skill acquisition.
An epistemology describes how we believe knowledge is acquired and justified. A pedagogy describes how we design and facilitate learning for others. Kirschner (2021) offers a useful case study to think about for a science teacher. Kirschner highlights that many educators mistakenly assume that the best way to teach science (the pedagogy) is to replicate how scientists do science (the epistemology). This confusion of teaching science by inquiry rather than about inquiry overlooks a crucial distinction between the scientist and the novice science student. Scientists generate knowledge through rigorous processes grounded in experience and theory, while students are learning about those processes. Treating students as miniature scientists assumes they share the same epistemic sophistication, when they require pedagogical scaffolds to understand the logic, assumptions, and limitations of scientific inquiry. The broader issue is that curriculum designers often fail to distinguish between the epistemological foundations of a discipline and the pedagogical strategies needed to teach it. In short, learners don’t practice science, they learn about science, and teaching should reflect that distinction.
How does this apply to the work of skill acquisition specialists, especially given the dual role that they (may) have – facilitating athlete (skill) learning and facilitating coach learning about skill learning? Are motor (skill) learning and (coach) learning the same? In other words, is coaching a motor skill? Should the approach a skill acquisition specialist uses to facilitate skill learning also be used to facilitate coach learning? Depending on a skill acquisition specialist’s paradigm, how they go about facilitating coach learning will vary. This has implications then for how a skill acquisition specialist might differentiate their epistemology of skill acquisition (how skill learning happens) and pedagogy to teach skill acquisition. How does a skill acquisition specialist differentiate the epistemological basis of skill acquisition from the pedagogical basis to teach skill acquisition.
One important clarification for this post is that I am assuming that one responsibility of the skill acquisition specialist may be to support coach learning about skill acquisition, while another responsibility might be to directly support athlete skill acquisition. There may be a significant overlap between these two framings. By situating the skill acquisition specialist as a facilitator of coach learning, their role becomes clearly differentiated from the coach’s role of facilitating athlete learning. However, this then creates another overlap with a coach developer. This is beyond the point of this post, but something worth thinking about (for me at least!).
Epistemology as Pedagogy – an ecological perspective
Using an epistemology (for skill acquisition) as pedagogy (for coach learning about skill acquisition) assumes that learning about facilitating learning happens the same way as learning to perform a skill. This is true from a particular paradigm – ecological realism. Indeed, many skill acquisition specialists assume the best way to teach skill acquisition to coaches (the pedagogy) is to replicate how athletes learn skills (the epistemology). From an ecological dynamics perspective, learning, knowing, and doing are inseparable. In theory, ecological realism may provide a coherent epistemology that could account for athlete skill learning and coach learning about skill learning.
Indeed, ecological dynamics has been posited as an underpinning for coach learning and development (Askew et al., 2023; Lascu et al., 2024; Otte et al., 2024; Wood et al., 2022). From this paradigm, skill acquisition specialists (or coach developers) might assume: “Athletes learn through exploration in representative environments, coaches will learn through exploration of the coaching environment.” This perspective views epistemology (how skill acquisition happens) as pedagogy (how we teach skill acquisition). In short, a skill acquisition specialist of this perspective may use their epistemology of skill acquisition (ecological dynamics) as their pedagogy to teach coaches about skill acquisition.
Taking Gaelic football as an example, a skill acquisition specialist working from an ecological worldview might use the epistemology itself as the pedagogy. For the athlete, representative learning design might consist of a practice task that includes a ball, opponents, direction of play, and consequences, i.e., the task design model (O'Sullivan et al., 2021). A task aligned with the principle that knowledge and skill emerge through interaction with constraints. For the coach, the same epistemological logic is applied pedagogically: designing a session on handpassing that utilises a range of balls of different shapes and weights (Wood et al., 2022). This challenges the coach to experience learning through interaction — repeating the exploration and discovery process under different conditions — just as the athlete does. In this way, the theory of knowing (learning through interaction) becomes the method of teaching (teaching through interaction).
While coherent within its worldview, this ecological stance may be less equipped to handle the messy, evolving nature of coach learning, which is, by definition, wicked.
Coach learning (and skill acquisition) as a wicked problem – the pragmatic skill acquisition specialist.
Before discussing that ecological perspective, I want to appropriately frame coach learning. As suggested by Rynne and Mallett (2024, p. i), “contemporary coach development presents as a wicked problem, in that it continues to evolve, it is contextually bound, and there is no single or obvious way to approach it.” The “wicked” labelling of a problem acknowledges both the complexity of the problem along with the need to better understand the interconnected and interdependent variables, recognising the importance of problem understanding prior to problem solution (Thompson & Houston, 2024).
Rittel and Webber (1973) identified 10 characteristics of wicked problem. Parkes and Mallett (2024) discussed six of these characteristics specifically in relation to coach development:
- No single definition.
- No definitive solution.
- Non-positivist.
- No immediate solution.
- The problem is constantly evolving.
- The problem is situated.
From a skill acquisition specialist’s standpoint, their aim is to support coach learning about skill acquisition, which is also a wicked problem! (Parkes & Mallett, 2024; Rittel & Webber, 1973; Vaughan et al., 2019). Pohl et al. (2017) suggested the need for practitioners to accept and welcome the paradox of views, uncertainty and complexity when dealing with wicked problems. There have been calls for the adoption of a transdisciplinary approach to address wicked problems (Vaughan et al., 2019; Woods et al., 2021). This much to be said about mixed-disciplinary approaches (multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, undisiciplinary, trans), but that is beyond the purpose of this blog – see Burns and Collins (2023) for a discussion. A key supporting feature of a transdisciplinary approach is epistemological agility, which is defined as “the importance of being aware of and able to navigate ontological and epistemological differences” (p. 196) (Haider et al., 2018).
Being aware of ontological and epistemological differences requires a broad understanding of various ontological and epistemological positions, or theories. Therefore, theoretical connoisseurship is important to facilitate epistemological agility. Theoretical connoisseurship involves the appreciation and awareness of the characteristics and qualities of many theories (Nelson et al., 2016; Rynne & Mallett, 2024). Theoretical connoisseurship through a pragmatic paradigm equips skill acquisition specialists with a range of tools to solve wicked problems. A pragmatist views theories and knowledge as tools (Giacobbi et al., 2005), which supports a practitioner when working through a problem (Ertmer, 2013). Specifically, learning theory can support skill acquisition specialists to make sense of and solve wicked coach learning problems. Therefore, a skill acquisition specialist must be skilled in facilitating coach learning, and their practice should be grounded in learning theory. The learning theory (and epistemology) will depend on the context. It is worth circling back to the example around coaching variability (through footballs of different shapes and weights). While it may be a legitimate teaching strategy, whether it is appropriate or not depends on the learner and context.

An alternative view – epistemological agility and pedagogical flexibility
My (current) view is more aligned to the one espoused by (Kirschner, 2021). As a pragmatist, my practice is not attached to or defined by any single theory. Learning by practicing under different constraints in different contexts (applied to athletes and coaches) is a legitimate learning strategy. But it needs to be used at an appropriate time, in an appropriate way, and it not the only one. Therefore, I do not always see the collapsing of epistemology as pedagogy as helpful. And much like the science teacher example at the start of this blog, using epistemology as pedagogy can be problematic, risks imposing a sophisticated epistemology onto coaches who are still developing their understanding of learning. Furthermore, I believe that coaching knowledge can be grown outside of coaching (through having and listening to conversations, reading and writing blogs, articles, and observing other coaching sessions). When supporting coach learning, we support coaches to acquire knowledge and apply knowledge, recognising that these processes may require different pedagogical approaches.
Coach learning about (skill) learning often requires more than just exposure to key skill learning concepts, like representative learning design (Pinder et al., 2011), or challenge point framework (Guadagnoli & Lee, 2004). A coach may see athletes exploring affordances, but unless the skill acquisition specialist helps the coach interpret why this is happening, possibly via like stimulated recall (O’Mahony et al., 2025; Stodter & Whitehead, 2024), or a reflective conversation (Muir & North, 2023; Stodter et al., 2021) and how it could inform their future design, the coach’s learning may remain surface-level and disconnected from future design decisions. Indeed, the skill acquisition specialist may lean on other learning theories to support their pedagogical practice, like cognitivism or constructivism, again, using them as tools to support solving the wicked problem.
Conclusion
Skill acquisition specialists occupy a complex space between theory and practice, between facilitating learning and facilitating learning about learning. When we treat an epistemology as a pedagogy, we risk confusing how knowledge is formed with how it is taught. For the skill acquisition specialist, the challenge is not to abandon any one theory, but to develop epistemological agility, to know when, why, and how to use different ways of knowing to facilitate different ways of learning.
References
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