How to assess your performance in training sessions.

Most coaches will assess their performance in a session in one form or another. But to really improve as a coach there comes a time when we need to dig a little deeper than a 10 minute recap on the drive home or on the way to another session.

Assessment tools

In order to fully assess performance in training sessions we need to use two basic tools. In order to assess out interactions with the players we need to video our sessions so that we get to actually see what, where and when we did things as opposed to trying to remember these things. Alongside the use of video we also need to hear what we say to the players and also what they say to us. There are a number ways to do this. Ideally the use of wireless microphones in connection with the video will allow you to watch and listen at the same time or you can use a voice recorder on a cell phone and then just sync the audio up with the video. Rather than belabour the point here, I am sure that there are a many ways to do this, after a little trial and error you will come up with something that works.

When you have your video and audio ready to go, its time to watch and listen and start to draw some conclusions from what you see and hear. In my opinion the best way to do this is to ‘tag’ the video and I would suggest that you use an app called Dartfish Easy Tag. I am not the most tech savvy person but this app is easy to set up, easy to use and gives you the information that you want to gather. At this point I should mention Dave Hill who as Director of the National Coaching Institute here in BC has been a great resource for me and he introduced me to this app.

What to look for?

The first thing to focus on is time. We can break our session down into three distinct phases.

Management- Time to move cones, change activities, change personnel in teams and activities, water breaks, gathering balls etc.

Instruction time- Time used to introduce and explain the activities, coaching interventions to the whole group

Activity time- exactly what is says, time when the players are active in the session.

This allows us to see how active our players are, how much time we lose to session management and how efficient we are with our instructions and interventions. These times will vary based on the age of the players, ability of the group and familiarity with the topic. We should never spend more than 20% of our session in management and we should always aim for more than 60% activity time in our sessions. With a new group or a new concept our instruction time will be increased until the group pick up the idea we are trying to give to them. Any increase in instruction time should come from management time and not activity time.

Our next focus should be on our interventions in the session and I have broken them down into four categories.

Evaluation- This is where we evaluate the performance and ability of the players in relation to the task at hand. It’s an important intervention as it gives information to the player that allows them to gauge their abilities.

Description-As coaches we often fall into the trap of describing what is happening and becoming ‘commentators’. Parents can sometimes confuse this with good coaching when in reality too much description is the trait of a coach who is still developing. We shouldn’t need to tell people what is happening or what has happened as we should have their full attention. Having said that a few descriptive comments will help us paint the picture for our players

Prescription- The key intervention: this is linked to evaluation and gives the players the information to correctly carry out the task. Evaluation without prescription is a waste of time if the player is failing in the task.

General- This is a wide range and includes refreshing the memory of the players, encouragement of the players, rule changes to facilitate different behaviours that lead to evaluation and in turn prescription and any other comment or intervention that isn’t listed above.

When we look at our interventions we should look for a link between evaluation and prescription as these are the two key interventions. As coaches we should always be planning and preparing for our interventions before and during the session. A lot of general and descriptive interventions are a sign that you are talking too much and this leads to vital information being missed by the players as they will in time tune you out.

The next two categories to look at are questioning and your general approach to the session. In terms of general approach I simply mark down how many positive comments that are made and how many critiques are made throughout the session. In these comments I am looking for a ratio of at least 2:1 in the favour of positive. If it’s all positive then you are coaching Bayern Munich and if it’s mostly positive you have set your expectation level too high and the players will be turned off in time with your negativity.

With regard to questions record how many questions you ask and how many questions the players ask of you. This will help you figure out how you communicate with the players. Questions from the coach show us that the question and answer or guided discover method of communication has been favoured. A lack of questions points us to the command style of coaching. Questions from the players can tell us a number of things; maybe they need a little more instructional time in practice or you are missing key elements of the session in your introduction and instruction.

The final category I use is for non-verbal cues. Non-verbal cues are from actions mostly in our demonstrations. It’s easy to forget to demo in sessions as we often get fixated on verbal cues and demands and want to stay in adult communication mode. In a 40 minute session we should be looking for at least 10-12 non-verbal cues. This will give the players the opportunity to put actions and words into context in the session.

When assessing our own work it’s vitally important to get video and audio. The data only tells half the story and without video our words are difficult to put into a context from memory, and as we get older the memory goes a little!

If you have the ability to get your hands on the app then feel free to email me, headcoach@lowerislandsoccer.com and I will send you a copy of my tagging panel.