The Opportunities and Challenges of Virtual Coach Education in Rural and Remote Communities

Carrie W LeCromKalyn McDonough Smith^*

• Center for Sport Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, United States

Within sport for development (SFD) it has been widely established that coaches, and the presence of strong adult relationships, plays a critical role in facilitating a broad array of positive youth outcomes in sport. Yet, the ability for coaches to play a meaningful role has been found to be influenced by their involvement in coach education and support from learning communities. While we know coaching education is important, not all coaches can access it readily, due to a lack of programs in certain geographic areas, a lack of local/in-person expertise, financial or time constraints, and other factors that make it inaccessible. As is often the case, it is communities that face the greatest marginalization that experience inequities in access to quality coach education. As a means to overcome these barriers, virtual education has been identified as a potential strategy to help broadly disseminate foundational coaching knowledge and skills, but despite an increased use of technology, the practice has outpaced research, which has found support for its efficacy was weak. Utilizing the Task- Technology Fit Framework, our study works to address these gaps by assessing virtual coach education among ten sport for change organizations in ten countries to illustrate and understand access, strategies, as well as strengths and limitations.