Upskilling coaches and physical education teachers to deliver injury prevention in children: exploring knowledge, confidence and attitude using a novel Bayesian approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63750/58c08m95Keywords:
Coach education, Youth, Injury preventionAbstract
Knowledge, attitude and confidence around injury prevention for children is important if grass-root sport coaches and physical education teachers want to deliver such programmes, but it is unclear if they have such skills. 95 grass-root coaches and PE teachers (25 females, 70 males) completed a validated questionnaire exploring use, knowledge, attitude towards, and confidence to deliver youth movement competency training. A Bayesian factor was used to quantify for and against the hypothesis of independence (H0) in each of the survey questions with regards to sex differences. Only 35% of participants had heard of injury prevention programmes and 47% included movement competency training in their practice. Significantly more males had knowledge of and were using injury prevention in their coaching than females (BF10 Poisson = 2.67 and 1.4). Most participants (93%) felt that incorporating an injury prevention programme is important but recognise they need more knowledge around injury prevention programmes (90%). 68% had a positive attitude towards, and 67% were confident to deliver movement competency training. Less than half of participants were employing movement competency into their daily practice, and most suggested they would benefit from new knowledge. Training and upskilling using culturally suitable methods are required especially for females who reported less knowledge and confidence.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Prof Mark B.A. De Ste Croix, Dr Jonathan D. Hughes, Dr Kirsten Wing, Dr Will Roberts, Dr Francisco Ayala (Author)
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