, since the inception of the cycling formal coaching program in 2011, a total of 590 coaches have been trained and 291 coaches formally accredited.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
In New Zealand, we could not uncover the total figure of certified sports coaches from the leading sports bodies in the nation. We started by examining several federations and national sports organizations (NSOs) such as Taekwondo New Zealand, the National Rifle Association of New Zealand, Sport New Zealand, Coach Federation, High Performance Sports New Zealand, Athletics new Zealand, and Cycling New Zealand. Unfortunately, we managed to get an official mention on the total number of registered athletics coach in New Zealand as of 2018 in the athletics New Zealand annual report [6].
A report by the Coach Federation provided a list of International Coach Federation certified coaches broken down based on country [4]. According to the report, New Zealand has a total of 238 certified coaches with the organization, serving various disciplines of life including life coaching, leadership, and many other facets that require coaching [4]. Therefore, the figure provided by Coach Federation cannot be relied upon since it does not specify whether that number represents sports coaches only or it includes coaches in other disciplines. We even proceeded to examine the Coach Federation branch of New Zealand, but could not find any further breakdown of the figures provided.
Since we managed to find only the statistics regarding the total number of certified athletics coaches, we adopted additional search strategies to try to uncover the missing information. First, we opted to search for the information in local sports news and magazines, but realized that the prevalent information relates to coaching itself, but not about the statistics on coaching in the nation. An attempt to scour multiple business and local reports still returned no meaningful data.
Second, we narrowed down to search for certified coaches per individual sport. This strategy helped us uncover statistics regarding the total number of certified athletes coaches, but none for the other disciplines, i.e., shooting, cycling, and taekwondo. We scoured multiple annual reports for the individual sports – taekwondo, cycling, and shooting, but none featured information on their number of certified coaches, besides the annual report for athletics. Our attempts did not unearth useful quantitative findings even after examining two to three previous annual reports for the other games in
Third, we opted to extend the time range and search through reports older than 24 months. We found various data points on coaches, but still figures explicitly stating the total number of certified coaches in New Zealand were not found. After these attempts and failure to uncover the total number of New Zealand’s certified coaches, we concluded that these figures exist with the national bodies but have not been made public or mentioned throughout several sports organization reports. Our assumption follows the notion that in the annual report for athletics in 2018, the total number of coaches were mentioned, including those that are certified, but in other reports there were no mentions.
FINDINGS
According to the International Coach Federation (ICF) – Membership Fact Sheet published March 2018, there are a total of 238 ICF certified coaches from New Zealand; 67 are Associate Certified Coaches (ACC), 24 are Professional Certified Coaches (PCC), and 2 are Master Certified Coaches (MCC), the rest were not accounted as per the report [4].
On the other hand, founded in 2010, the High Performance Sports New Zealand (HPSNZ) partners with national sport organizations (NSOs) to develop world-leading coaching and high performance program leadership [1]. The HPSNZ features a coach certification program, the ‘Coach Accelerator Program,’ which trains and approves coaches to align with international standards [2]. Since the program was inaugurated, there have been 41 graduate coaches and 31 current coaches from 19 sports [2]. Overall, the program has certified over 100 coaches in different sports [5]. In 2017, HPSNZ held 8 high performance workshops. In 2018, the body awarded 35 Prime Minister coaching scholarships and had 30 participating coaches in Coach Accelerator Program (CAP) [5]. Unfortunately, they did not include a breakdown detailing the specific games federations the certified coaches represented
ATHLETICS NEW ZEALAND
According to the Athletics New Zealand annual report for 2018, the organization had a total of 22,102 members and was affiliated to 179 clubs [6]. Moreover, the organization has 999 graded officials, 110 coach members, of which 98 are certified [6]. According to the report, coaching remains a primary area for athletics, with quality coaching being the most likely approach to attract and retain young athletes into a lifetime involvement in the sport [6].
CYCLING NEW ZEALAND
On New Zealand Cycling organization website, they feature various statistics regarding coaching, but none mentions the total number of certified coaches for the sport. Notably, since the inception of the cycling formal coaching program in 2011, a total of 590 coaches have been trained and 291 coaches formally accredited [7].
Between January and December 2015, a total of 70 – Grade 1, 2, & 3 cycle coaches were trained, another 108 sport coaches trained (across the codes), 114 coaches attended professional development sessions, 24 track coaches went through the new ‘Real Alife’ first aid course, and 28 regional commissaries were trained [7].
COACH DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES
Sport New Zealand features several documents designed to help national sport organizations (NSOs) to create coach development guidelines. The documents include NSO program development guidelines, coaching practice progressions, sport-specific technical and tactical skill progressions, induction learning outcomes, and developing coach learning outcomes [3]. The coach development procedure in New Zealand is a bit detailed to ensure that the trainees qualify as coaching professionals accredited by the HPSNZ and respective organizational bodies.
To be eligible for certification under the ‘Coach Accelerator Program,’ aspiring coaches in New Zealand must meet these requirements.
Currently coaching elite athletes and teams
High potential future coaches of elite athletes and teams
Development level coaches identified by NSO’s as top members of the high performance program.
High performance personnel in the High Performance coaching pathway of the NSO
Coaching applicants must be coaching performance or elite athletes, show a commitment to learning and applying their new skills on the job, show full dedication to the program, contribute to the cohort of coaches, and demonstrate a commitment to work ethically and meet the expectations of their NSO, HPSNZ, and the New Zealand society.
[1] https://hpsnz.org.nz/about-us/
[2] https://hpsnz.org.nz/about-us/news-media/hpsnz-announce-latest-intake-for-cap-2018/
[3] https://sportnz.org.nz/managing-sport/search-for-a-resource/guides/coach-development-programme-guidelines
[4] https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2018/03/March2018_FactSheet.pdf
[5] https://hpsnz.org.nz/resources/coach-support/#CAP
[6] http://www.athletics.org.nz/Portals/24/Files/Administration/Annual%20reports%20Pre%202009/ATHNZ_2017-18%20Ann%20Report%203.3MB.pdf
[7] https://www.cyclingnewzealand.nz/coaches-and-officials/coaches
[8] https://taekwondonz.com/
[9] https://www.nranz.com/
[10] https://hpsnz.org.nz/resources/coach-support/
[11]