Systematic review of the effectiveness of interpersonal coach education interventions on athlete outcomes Edel Langan a, * , Catherine Blake a , Chris Lonsdale b a University College Dublin, Ireland b University of Western Sydney, Australia article info Article history: Received 5 October 2011 Received in revised form 29 May 2012 Accepted 26 June 2012 Available online 7 July 2012 Keywords: Coach education Training Design Coaching effectiveness abstract Objectives: To systematically review and evaluate the literature on the effectiveness of coach education interventions. Specifically, we aimed to: (a) describe the non-formal coach education interventions aimed at coaches’ interpersonal knowledge base, (b) highlight underpinning theoretical models, (c) assess the methodological quality of articles evaluating these interventions, (d) identify participant characteristics, and (e) establish the effect of these interventions on athletes’ cognitive, affective, and behavioural outcomes. Design: Systematic review of published empirical research. Method: Published English language articles were identified using electronic databases and manual searches of reference lists. The quality of the identified articles was assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) tool. Results: Four interventions fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were thus systematically reviewed. Overall, education interventions based on coach effectiveness training and achievement goal theory produced mixed effects on a variety of athlete outcomes, such as anxiety, self-esteem, fear of failure, and motivational orientation. Conclusions: Due to the diversity in athlete outcomes and intervention design, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions around the effectiveness of coach education interventions. The small number of identified interventions highlights the current paucity of empirical data on coach education intervention effectiveness. More research is needed to further our understanding of intervention effectiveness to allow for growth and improvement in coach education. Furthermore, theory-based, rather than “theory inspired” coach education interventions are required. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Given the sport environment constitutes the most popular extracurricular activity in which youth participate (Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord, 2005), one of the key challenges is for coaches and researchers to collaborate to ensure that youth have a positive experience in sport. Petitpas, Cornelius, Van Raalte, and Jones (2005) suggested that one condition necessary for positive youth development was the presence of caring adults. They argued that caring adults could be regarded as external assets, who assist youth in developing skills that are transferable to domains other than sport. Specifically, Petitpas, Giges, and Danish (1999) stated that it is the quality of the relationship with influential adults that will have the greatest impact on the development of positive athlete characteristics. Coaches have ongoing interactions with athletes; hence they have the potential to impact significantly on athlete development (Conroy & Coatsworth, 2004). The importance of a coach’s ability to create and maintain relationships (interpersonal knowledge; Becker, 2009) was highlighted by Cote and Gilbert (2009) in their integrative definition of coaching effectiveness. Specifically, Cote and Gilbert (2009) proposed that the effectiveness of a coach depended on a combination of factors: (a) the coaches’ knowledge base, (b) athletes’ outcomes, and (c) the different contexts that coaches typically work in. In-depth discussions about athlete outcomes (Cote, Bruner, Erickson, Strachan, & Fraser-Thomas, 2010; Cote & Gilbert, 2009) and coaching contexts (Lyle & Cushion, 2010; Trudel & Gilbert, 2006) are available elsewhere in the literature. While it perhaps seems obvious that an extensive base of knowl- edge is a prerequisite to coach effectiveness, the importance of this characteristic demands that it be examined thoroughly. Gilbert and Cote (2009) presented an in-depth discussion on the coaches’ knowledge component, specifically sport coaching, and highlighted three forms of coaches’ knowledge that underpinned coaching effectiveness and expertise. Professional knowledge was viewed as the content knowledge of a coach and how he/she teaches sport skills. Interpersonal knowledge was viewed as * Corresponding author. þ353 876259644. E-mail address: langanedel@hotmail.com (E. Langan). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Psychology of Sport and Exercise journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport 1469-0292/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.06.007 Psychology of Sport and Exercise 14 (2013) 37e49