EMA_assignment_npl

EMA

End-of-module assessment (EMA)

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40 per cent of overall assessment score (OAS)

Cut-off date: 29 May 2025

Word limit: 3000 words

Task

For ONE of the scenarios you are given in this EMA, write an evidence-based report with three sections:

• Section A – explain where the beliefs informing the current practice of the coach stem from
• Section B – discuss the scientific knowledge the coach should acquire in order to inform their practice and make it more effective
• Section C – propose a reasoned and informed approach to help the coach learn and apply this scientific knowledge.

Scenario 1: Child athlete

The Football Association (The FA): Jade

You are employed by The FA as a coach mentor to support coaches working towards their next coaching qualification. One of your mentees, Jade, coaches an under 14s (u14) girls’ team at a club near you. The team compete in a regional league, and two of the squad attend academy training once every three weeks with a local, higher level club.

Jade is middle-aged and used to play football at regional league level. She currently holds a level 2 coaching qualification in football and has coached the team for the past five years, since they were U9s. She has never had any previous mentoring support, and much of her learning has been informed by watching football academy documentaries and talking to coaches at other clubs. Jade also gets a lot of her training information from the internet and replicates the practices that she experienced as a player.

When she’s not coaching, Jade also works as a poolside lifeguard at a local leisure centre and, apart from her football qualification, has no other coaching or sport-and-exercise-science-related qualification. You have so far observed Jade on three occasions over a four-week period and you are encouraged by some of the coaching practices she adopts. You agreed with Jade that you would meet her after the first month to share in detail your observations and support her development.

To date, you have observed that Jade is very friendly, knows the players well and treats them with respect. She is outgoing and very approachable and engages with the parents before and after sessions to provide feedback. While Jade’s coaching style is fairly relaxed, she does like to stick to her plan for the season and is not receptive to adapting training sessions to what the players ask for. Her favourite saying is ‘trust the plan and my process’, which she says she took from reading a biography style blog post written by one of her favourite football coaches. The players appear to have become accustomed to Jade sticking to a generic plan for all of them. As an example, Jade does not agree a specific objective with each player for them to focus on – instead, she sets out the session plan at the start for everyone to follow, regardless of ability, needs or current physical/mental/health/training status.

At the start of each session, Jade welcomes the players and then proceeds straight into their favourite warm-up, during which she is clearly observing the players but no monitoring questions are asked or recorded to support her approach to sessions or games. In one of the sessions that you observed, you heard one of the players who trains with the other academy tell Jade that they were struggling with muscle soreness. Jade encouraged the player to keep working hard and suggested that she stopped doing the resistance training that the academy had prescribed so she was ready to train at club level.

All players have a similar fitness plan in place, but Jade gets all the players to focus on aerobic fitness which, she says, will help them in playing the full 90 minutes. Jade believes that aerobic fitness is most appropriate for girls of this age and says she is keen that the girls avoid resistance training until they are at least 16 years old. This stems from her own negative personal experiences where she picked up an injury a week after starting resistance training. She often shares stories of injuries and stunted growth from her own previous playing experience to justify this advice with the parents.

Each week the same taller players start the game to ‘get an early advantage’ but Jade does make use of substitutions to ensure everyone gets a bit of game time. Jade is focused on winning matches but says she is equally keen for the players to have a good time as she believes it’s very unlikely any of the smaller players will make it to the top level in the game from this age onwards. The two players who attend the other academy training were selected at 12 and are encouraged to disregard training advice they come back with and focus on being part of Jade’s plan and to ‘trust the process’.

The statements set out below should provide you with further insight into Jade’s coaching beliefs and practices.

Specific Guidance

As well as following the general guidance for this scenario, in section B your report must include a discussion about:

• the adaptations and benefits that resistance training generates
• the importance of monitoring each child using workload and wellbeing measures
• why it is necessary to be aware of early and late specialisation as well as the process of maturation and how this impacts physical development
• the relative age effect and how this can influence selection decisions and long-term athlete development.

You will see from this specific guidance that there is significant scope, particularly in the second section of your report, to describe and evaluate the scientific knowledge that Jade should be applying to her coaching practice.

Scenario 2: Ageing athlete

Regional Hockey: Ahmed

You are employed by your regional hockey league as a coach developer to support coaches working towards their next coaching qualification. Ahmed, a local hockey coach, is one of the club coaches you are supporting.

Three months ago, Ahmed started working with an over 50s county masters team (aged 50–59 years). The squad want to improve their match performances as well as getting in the best shape they can for an upcoming national tournament (6 months from now). The team has been training together for the past few years and have attracted some new players this year. They have brought Ahmed in to coach them in order to be more competitive across the full 70-minute matches and to reduce the amount of injuries (non-contact injuries). The team are hoping that as they all age Ahmed will continue to work with them to remain competitive.

Ahmed has a history of achieving success with younger national league level hockey teams (highest league in the UK) and the masters team are hoping he can support them to achieve success too. The over 50s team is Ahmed’s first masters team and due to his lack of experience in this age range has been very cautious with their training. This approach is making the team question the benefit of the coaching relationship, and while they often enjoy the skill aspects of the training sessions, they are finding them too easy, and they know they can significantly increase their workload. They appreciate that increases in workload need to be addressed progressively. The team have mentioned this to Ahmed on several occasions, but Ahmed insists that in his hockey training qualification and through the discussions he has had with other coaches, and reading he has undertaken, older people should be really careful and should limit the intensity and amount of prescribed training, especially with any additional weights sessions. Ahmed also coaches the team at regular matches but does not monitor their external or internal load.

At the start of each session, Ahmed sets out the plan with no input from the team and they get straight into a warm-up and then training set plays. Ahmed makes all the decisions about the type of training and intensity based on his knowledge gained through reading magazines, blogs and articles online about older adults and his previous coaching experiences and conversations with other coaches.

Ahmed has also devised a structured bodyweight training plan that he gives to all the players to complete once a week at home. He insists that the intensity remains very low and only minimal resistance should be used. The team had also undertaken field-based testing with external consultants before hiring Ahmed, and the results suggested they were all above average for their age across a range of anaerobic, sprint and strength tests.. Ahmed knows about this testing but has not considered the results stating that they need to start with caution due to their age and adopt his usual hockey development plan.

Ahmed believes older athletes can make performance gains from lifting weights but are better off doing bodyweight resistance training, alongside focusing on hockey skills because the risk of injury is too high with greater intensity of resistance training.

The statements set out below should provide you with further insight into Ahmed’s coaching beliefs and practices.

Specific Guidance

As well as following the general guidance for this scenario, in Section B your report must include a discussion about:

• the physiological changes that occur through the ageing process
• the effects of training on the ageing body and the adaptations that occur
• the benefits that can be gained through a structured approach to resistance training
• the myths that inform ageism.

You will see from this specific guidance that there is significant scope, particularly in the second section of your report, to describe and evaluate the scientific knowledge that Ahmed should be applying to his coaching practice.

Scenario 3. Environmental physiology

The International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU): Jacob

You are employed by The IAU as a coach mentor, and part of this role involves supporting coaches working towards their next coaching qualification in the sport. Jacob is the head coach at a local ultra-running club and you have been assigned to support his coaching as a mentor.

You’ve recently attended a few of Jacob’s sessions and agreed to provide Jacob some feedback in a few weeks’ time once you have observed his coaching. At the sports centre, which acts as the meeting point for the ultra club, you start chatting to some of the club members before they go out for a long training run. Through discussions, you find out that Jacob has been offered the chance to use an environmental chamber (used for altitude and temperature-based training) at the local university. This would be available on a regular basis in the lead-up to an event that many of the members have entered: The Cocodona250. The race is a 250-mile ultra-marathon based in Arizona, USA, with much of the race at high altitude (above 5000 ft; range 1877–9241 ft). The weather is very mixed, depending on the altitude the runner is at during the race: temperatures in the low desert regions are warm to very hot during the day while the higher desert sections will be warm during the day and cool in the evenings. However, once runners reach the higher altitudes temperatures may drop to freezing overnight and rain or even snow is possible. Many sections of the course are open and exposed with little to no shade. The demanding race will require the runners to be prepared for all aspects mentioned above through their training and acclimatisation.

The members of the club take these races very seriously and would like to get the most out of their training in the remaining months ahead. Despite some members of the club having doubts about this additional opportunity, Jacob makes his own decision that all athletes should use the environmental chamber and switches many of the trail running sessions to take place in the chamber with a mixture of high altitude with cooler temperatures and low altitude with higher temperatures. This means less time spent out on the local trails, focusing on technique for different sections of the race

You know that Jacob has a background as a track runner and therefore not as an ultra-marathon runner. He used an environmental chamber some years ago to prepare for a track meeting being held in a hot climate, and felt it benefited him a great deal. He has stated in his response to the university that the runners would like to use the environmental chamber and that the same protocol should be followed for all athletes. However, Jacob has no evidence in his records to demonstrate if it is appropriate for each athlete and is not asking for individual athlete input or to see any previous physiology testing results.

While Jacob collects data about training distances run each week from all runners, he does not ask them any monitoring questions around their training status, muscle soreness, sleep, recovery, nutrition, training load, etc. He feels that he has a good idea of how people are responding by observing them out on his club training runs.

The statements set out below should provide you with further insight into Jacob’s coaching beliefs and practices.

Specific Guidance

As well as following the general guidance for this scenario, in section B your report must include a discussion about:

• the physiological effects that performing at altitude can have on the body
• the types of training that can prepare the body for performing at altitude and the physiological adaptations these bring about
• the impact of temperature on the body during performance, the factors that can influence this, and how an appropriate training programme can prepare the body for performing in such extreme temperatures
• the extent to which training can be tailored to meet the needs of those runners who want to compete and perform and those who want to approach the race in a more leisurely way.

You will see from this specific guidance that there is significant scope, particularly in the second section of your report, to describe and evaluate the scientific knowledge that Jacob should be applying to his practice.

General Guidance

You should choose the scenario that reflects ONE of the options that you studied in Study Topic 5. The EMA also covers the content you studied in Study Topic 6 and elements of Study Topic 1.

The purpose of the EMA is to assess your understanding and ability to apply appropriate scientific knowledge to support the learning and development of the individual featured in the scenario that you choose.

The task focuses on producing an evidence-based report and you should support your answers with reference to the module materials and other appropriate academic literature.

Your report should provide clarity and clearly reasoned arguments for the suggestions that you are proposing to support the development of the coach in your chosen scenario. Your report should also be written in third person narrative throughout.

Structure of the report

This specific EMA report is structured in three sections. Each section is weighted differently, and marks will be allocated proportionally. The three sections are:

Section A (300 words, 10 marks)

• In Section A you should explain how the coach’s past experiences, biography and current beliefs are influencing their current practice. In this section you will need to establish the connection between these beliefs and the coach’s previous experiences and biography.
• Reference could be made to Unit 3, Activity 3.6 Exploring filtering processes through Sarah and Alex, to illustrate that a coach’s beliefs can act as a filter through which they assess new information and knowledge. You may use diagrams to support this section.

Section B (1700 words, 60 marks)

• Section B enables you to discuss the scientific knowledge the coach should be drawing on and applying to their practice.
• The scientific knowledge that you discuss should be evidence-based and grounded in credible research which is appropriately referenced in your report.
• Be wary of drawing on anecdotal knowledge that is not supported by appropriate scientific evidence.
• You should refer to your selected option from Study Topic 5 to help you complete this section.
• Note – in the past, students have lost marks by not applying the research evidence they have found back to the case study. Alternatively, they’ve focussed on the case study without providing any evidence from research literature to support their discussions on how scientific knowledge can be applied to improve the coaching practice of the case study.

Section C (1000 words, 30 marks)

• This section should focus on the strategy and approach you intend to follow, as the coaching mentor, that will help the coach learn and develop.
• Appropriate models and concepts (e.g. behavioural stairway model) should be drawn on to inform your intended approach.
• Reference could be made to Unit 3, Section 3.6 Using science to explain how coaches learn as well as Unit 25, Section 25.3 Transforming a coach’s practice to Section 25.6 Using an iceberg analogy.
• Note – in the past, students have lost marks by applying the wrong focus in this section – they have incorrectly discussed how the coach should be working with their athletes / clients. Instead, you should focus your approach on how you, as the mentor, can work with the coach to improve their coaching effectiveness.

References

Ensure that all references both in your report and in the reference list at the end of it are appropriately formatted using the Cite Them Right (Harvard) style.