Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching (BESSC)

Abstract

The Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching (BESSC) (Kennedy, Dux, & Mallett, 2023) is an advanced, theoretically grounded psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate self-reported sports coaching expertise. Grounded in contemporary conceptualizations of coaching competence—notably defining expertise as the sustained capacity for high effectiveness within dynamic, contextualized athletic environments (Lyle & Cushion, 2017)—the scale resolves persistent measurement challenges historically characterized by overreliance on crude proxy markers, such as chronological coaching tenure or competitive win-loss ratios. The BESSC comprises 13 validated items evaluated via a 5-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree), structured across three specific first-order substantive domains: Coach Knowledge / Understanding, Interpersonal / Coach-Athlete Relationships, and Intrapersonal / Critical Reflection & Problem Solving, all nested beneath an overarching general coaching expertise factor. Psychometric validation via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across multi-national cohorts of sports coaches from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States established the superiority of a bifactor $S\cdot I-1$ structural model ($\chi^2(40) = 52.612, p = 0.087, \text{CFI} = 0.989, \text{TLI} = 0.981, \text{RMSEA} = 0.043$). The scale demonstrates exceptional internal consistency, with a general factor McDonald’s omega ($\omega$) of 0.93, while specific subscales exhibit robust omega coefficients ranging from 0.77 to 0.88. The BESSC offers sports organizations, high-performance athletic departments, and coach educators an empirically verified, parsimonious assessment tool for monitoring longitudinal professional development, identifying coaching strengths and deficiencies, and advancing empirical research in sports psychology and coach education.

Keywords

Coaching Expertise, Sports Coaching, Psychometrics, Bifactor Model, Coach Knowledge, Coach-Athlete Relationship, Reflective Practice, Scale Validation, Deliberate Practice, High Performance Sport

Authors

The Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching was conceptualized, developed, and validated by leading scholars in sports coaching, psychology, and human movement sciences at the University of Queensland:

• Andrew Kennedy, Ph.D. — School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. ORCID: 0000-0002-8011-044X. Corresponding author email: [email protected].
• Paul E. Dux, Ph.D. — School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
• Clifford J. Mallett, Ph.D. — School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.

Purpose

The principal objective of the Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching (BESSC) is to deliver a theoretically rigorous, psychometrically robust, and operationally parsimonious instrument designed to quantify sports coaching expertise across a continuum of competitive levels. For decades, sports science, organizational psychology, and athletic coaching research relied disproportionately on quantitative proxies to represent coaching expertise. Prominent among these proxies were cumulative years of coaching experience, highest qualification tier attained, competitive tier of the team, or historical win-loss records. As noted extensively across expert performance literature (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993), chronological duration in a domain is an inadequate surrogate for expertise, often reflecting mere experience rather than deliberate, progressive skill acquisition.

Consequently, the development of the BESSC directly resolves these empirical limitations. In applied sports environments, coach educators and performance directors require valid diagnostic instruments capable of identifying discrete coaching competencies, structuring customized coach development programs, and benchmarking intervention effectiveness over time. In empirical research contexts, the BESSC equips researchers with a standardized measurement tool capable of evaluating how coaching expertise intersects with athlete psychological outcomes, including autonomous motivation, collective efficacy, emotional self-regulation, performance anxiety, and team cohesion. By operationalizing expertise through a comprehensive multidimensional framework, the scale enables nuanced investigations into the specific mechanisms that differentiate expert practitioners from their non-expert counterparts.

Psychological Construct

The BESSC conceptualizes sports coaching expertise as a multidimensional, integrated construct reflecting the sustained capacity for high-level pedagogical, relational, and decision-making effectiveness within specialized athletic performance environments (Lyle & Cushion, 2017). Under this conceptualization, coaching is neither reducible to raw technical execution nor captured purely through declarative knowledge. Rather, coaching expertise manifests as the fluid interaction across three fundamental psychological and behavioral subdomains:

1. Coach Knowledge and Understanding (Professional Competence)

This dimension pertains to declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge foundational to the athletic discipline. It encapsulates a coach’s comprehensive mastery of sports-specific biomechanical, technical, and tactical requirements, adherence to administrative and competitive rules, and the pedagogical capacity to design structured, progressive training sessions. Rather than treating knowledge as passive information retention, this construct assesses the coach’s ability to diagnose technical deficiencies in real time, forecast tactical adjustments against opposing systems, and optimize athletic training periodization.

2. Interpersonal Competencies and Coach-Athlete Relationships (Relational Competence)

Sports coaching is intrinsically an interactive, social enterprise. This construct reflects the coach’s capacity to build, negotiate, and sustain positive, trust-based, and psychologically safe relationships with athletes. Key components encompass transparent and empathetic communication, sensitivity to individual athlete motivations, psychological development needs, and the deliberate construction of an inclusive, cohesive motivational climate. Highly expert coaches deploy these interpersonal competencies to navigate emotional friction, deliver constructive feedback that does not undermine athlete agency, and foster sustained autonomous engagement.

3. Intrapersonal Competencies, Critical Reflection, and Problem Solving (Metacognitive Competence)

Reflecting the highest echelons of cognitive maturity and self-regulation, this domain assesses a coach’s metacognitive architecture. It incorporates ongoing critical reflection on coaching behaviors, systemic identification of personal development needs, behavioral flexibility when adapting methodologies to situational volatility, and emotional regulation under high-stakes competitive stress. Furthermore, it gauges adaptive expertise—the capacity to innovate and execute efficacious solutions when confronting novel, ill-structured dilemmas for which routine automated responses are inadequate.

Theoretical Framework

The structural and conceptual foundation of the BESSC is rooted in two intersecting theoretical paradigms: the classical expertise literature within cognitive psychology and modern holistic conceptual models of sports coaching competence.

Foremost among these foundational models is the tripartite coaching knowledge framework delineated by Côté and Gilbert (2009), which posits that coaching effectiveness is defined by the consistent application of integrated professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge to improve athlete competence, confidence, connection, and character within specific coaching contexts. This paradigm established that technical sports mastery (professional knowledge) is sterile in the absence of emotional intelligence and social responsiveness (interpersonal knowledge) and cognitive self-examination (intrapersonal knowledge).

Complementing this model is Lyle and Cushion’s (2017) conceptualization of coaching expertise, which contrasts episodic, recreational participation leadership from the sustained, context-sensitive practice of high-performance coaching. Lyle and Cushion emphasize that expertise is not a fixed personal trait, but rather an ongoing, dynamic process of managing complex social systems characterized by unpredictability, rapid temporal demands, and multi-layered stakeholder expectations.

Furthermore, the scale integrates principles of adaptive expertise developed by Hatano and Inagaki (1986) and expanded within instructional psychology by Berliner (2001). Routine experts execute automated, standard procedures with high efficiency but falter when operating conditions change. Conversely, adaptive experts possess deep conceptual representations that permit active experimentation, self-correction, and novel problem-solving under competitive distress. The BESSC deliberately captures this metacognitive flexibility within its intrapersonal domain.

Validity

The validation protocol for the BESSC adhered to the unified concept of construct validity outlined in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014), establishing evidential support across several primary facets:

Content and Face Validity

Initial item generation originated from a rigorous review of empirical literature alongside consultation with expert panels composed of established sports coaching researchers, coach developers, and international-tier head coaches. Iterative focus groups and workshops examined the qualitative nuance, syntactic clarity, and cultural relevance of each item across jurisdictions. Pilot testing with active coaches confirmed that items possessed high face validity and reflected authentic coaching challenges.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was demonstrated via rigorous structural equation modeling. An initial four-factor specification indicated an excessively high latent correlation ($r = 0.96$) between skills and attributes, signaling empirical redundancy. Subsequent refinement justified collapsing these redundant elements, yielding an optimal three-factor substantive structure. To account for both the holistic nature of expertise and its domain-specific variances, a bifactor $S\cdot I-1$ model was evaluated against rival specifications. The bifactor structure exhibited outstanding fit to empirical data collected from coaches across Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, confirming that while coaches evaluate specific competencies, their responses are simultaneously governed by a robust, general coaching expertise dimension.

Discriminant and Convergent Validity

Statistically, the bifactor structural formulation separated the common global variance from the residual, unique variance attributable to the specific sub-dimensions. The significant likelihood ratio difference test against alternative nested models demonstrated that the multidimensional bifactor parameterization represented a superior statistical representation of the latent construct compared to conventional unidimensional or higher-order second-order architectures.

Reliability

Psychometric reliability for the BESSC was evaluated using model-based internal consistency estimators, predominantly McDonald’s omega ($\omega$) and subscale omega hierarchical coefficients ($\omega_s$), which provide superior and less biased representations of reliability than traditional Cronbach’s alpha within multidimensional and bifactor frameworks (Brunner et al., 2012).

• General Coaching Expertise Factor: The global expertise latent factor achieved an exceptional reliability coefficient ($\omega = 0.93$), demonstrating that the scale functions as an exceedingly precise aggregate assessment tool.
• Specific Factor 1 (Coach Knowledge / Understanding): Demonstrated strong internal consistency with a reliability estimate of $\omega_s = 0.87$.
• Specific Factor 2 (Interpersonal Competencies / Coach-Athlete Relationships): Produced an internal reliability estimate of $\omega_s = 0.88$.
• Specific Factor 3 (Intrapersonal Competencies / Critical Reflection & Problem Solving): Maintained moderate-to-good internal reliability with $\omega_s = 0.77$.

These coefficients confirm that both the total composite score and the discrete subscale scores yield high measurement precision, minimal standard error of measurement, and suitable reliability for individual and group diagnostic applications.

Factor Analysis

The empirical derivation and structural validation of the BESSC involved a sequential exploratory and confirmatory analytic strategy:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During preliminary structural exploration, EFA was conducted on the item pool to identify latent dimensionality. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) extracted initial latent configurations explaining 74.40% of the total cumulative variance. Maximum Likelihood (ML) factor extraction on the same item correlation matrix accounted for 63.89% of the total shared variance, demonstrating that the conceptual framework possessed robust explanatory power.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) & Bifactor Modeling

Multivariate CFA demonstrated that a preliminary 4-factor model suffered from severe multi-collinearity between the hypothesized skills and personal attributes constructs ($r = 0.96$), mandating the condensation of items into three substantive domains. Subsequent post-hoc structural testing evaluated a bifactor $S\cdot I-1$ model. In this model, all 13 items load directly onto a general expertise factor capturing shared target variance, while simultaneously loading onto one of three orthogonal specific domain factors representing unique residual variance.

The bifactor $S\cdot I-1$ model established exceptional goodness-of-fit across standard statistical thresholds:

• $\chi^2(40) = 52.612, p = 0.087$ (non-significant, indicating excellent baseline fit)
• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) = $0.954$
• Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI) = $0.911$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = $0.981$
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = $0.989$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = $0.043$ ($90%\text{ CI } [0.000, 0.071]$)
• Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) = $128.612$

A formal model comparison via likelihood ratio testing revealed that this bifactor specification significantly outperformed a standard second-order hierarchical model ($\Delta \chi^2(12) = 49.60, p le 0.001, \text{statistical power } ge 0.99$).

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Name: Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching (BESSC)
• Instrument Type: Standardized self-report psychometric inventory / rating scale
• Target Population: Adult sports coaches (ages 18 and older, including young adults, mid-career professionals, and master/veteran coaches across grassroots, developmental, collegiate, and elite high-performance tiers)
• Administration Format: Self-administered (electronic survey or paper-and-pencil delivery); typical completion time is approximately 3 to 5 minutes
• Item Count: 13 items
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neither agree nor disagree, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly agree)
• Subscale Architecture:
  • Coach Knowledge / Understanding: Items 1, 2, 3, and 4
  • Interpersonal / Coach-Athlete Relationships: Items 5, 6, 7, and 8
  • Intrapersonal / Critical Reflection & Problem Solving: Items 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13
• Scoring Rules: All 13 items are positively phrased (no reverse-scored items). Subscale scores are obtained by calculating the sum or mean of the respective items. A General Coaching Expertise score is derived by calculating the mean or sum across all 13 items. Higher scores reflect greater self-perceived coaching expertise.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching (BESSC) was officially published in 2023 by researchers Andrew Kennedy, Paul E. Dux, and Clifford J. Mallett in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching. The scale is protected under copyright by the authors and the publishing body (SAGE Publications). However, it is made available without any assessment fee for non-commercial academic, research, and non-profit educational applications. Researchers and practitioners intending to employ or adapt the instrument should contact the corresponding author, Dr. Andrew Kennedy ([email protected]), to request formal permission and maintain registration of institutional use.

References

• American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association. https://www.apa.org/science/programs/testing/standards
• Berliner, D. C. (2001). Teacher expertise. In F. V. Marton & R. Säljö (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 15482–15486). Pergamon. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/02410-6
• Brunner, M., Nagy, G., & Wilhelm, O. (2012). A tutorial on hierarchically structured constructs. Journal of Personality, 80(4), 796–846. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00749.x
• Côté, J., & Gilbert, W. (2009). An integrative definition of coaching effectiveness and expertise. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 4(3), 307–323. https://doi.org/10.1260/174795409789623892
• Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363
• Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child development and education in Japan (pp. 262–272). W. H. Freeman.
• Kennedy, A., Dux, P. E., & Mallett, C. J. (2023). Development of the Brief Expertise Scale for Sports Coaching. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 18(5), 1381–1394. https://doi.org/10.1177/17479541231188192
• Lyle, J., & Cushion, C. (2017). Sports coaching concepts: A framework for coaching practice (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203851531

Items of the Scale