(60) EFFECTIVNESS OF A BESPOKE MOVEMENT COMPETENCY WORKSHOP TO DEVELOP KNOWLDEGE, ATTITUDE AND CONFIDENCE OF GRASSROOT COACHES AND PE TEACHERS’

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their sport adopt appropriate safe movement, especially at grassroots levels. However, there are significant knowledge gaps amongst grassroots coaches and physical education (PE) teachers regarding movement competency and injury prevention programs. As children are a high-risk group for non-contact sporting injuries, they are an important target group for improving movement competency. It is unclear if a dedicated workshop can help coaches and PE teachers gain new knowledge, a better attitude towards and appropriate confidence to deliver such programs.

Purpose: To explore the effectiveness in terms of knowledge gain, adoption and implementation following a youth injury prevention workshop for grassroots coaches and PE teachers.

Methods: 56 grassroots coaches and PE teachers from across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia completed a validated questionnaire exploring use, knowledge, attitude towards and confidence to deliver youth movement competency training before and after an online workshop. The potential effects elicited by the workshop on the grassroots coaches´ and PE teachers' knowledge, attitude and confidence to deliver an injury prevention program were assessed using separate Bayesian Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. For all the Bayesian inference tests run, the Bayesian factor (BF₁₀) was interpreted using the evidence categories ranging from extreme evidence to anecdotical evidence.

Results: There was a 34% increase in respondents indicating that they had greater knowledge of injury prevention issues post-workshop (55% pre-workshop vs 89% post-workshop) with statistically positive and moderate effects (BF₁₀ > 100 [extreme evidence]). There was a 25% increase in respondents indicating that they had a more sympathetic attitude towards injury prevention post-workshop (67% sympathetic pre-workshop vs 93% sympathetic post-workshop) with statistically moderate effects (BF₁₀ = 87.4 [very strong evidence]). Furthermore, participants´ responded with a 19% increase in their confidence to deliver an injury prevention programme post-workshop (69% high pre-workshop vs. 89% high post-workshop) another statistically significantly increase (BF₁₀ = 85.9 [very strong evidence]).

Conclusions: A bespoke 2 hours workshop can increase knowledge and confidence of grassroots coaches and PE Teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to deliver youth injury prevention programs. The workshop resulted in significant intentions to adopt (30% increase [BF₁₀ > 100 [extreme evidence]), implement (30% increase [BF₁₀ > 100 [extreme evidence]) and maintain use of the injury prevention programme. Knowledge gain from training and upskilling resulted in a more positive attitude and confidence to deliver movement competency into coaching. Appropriate resources need to be developed that are culturally suitable and delivered in an accessible way to PE teachers and grassroots coaches. The Saudi Arabian coach and PE pathway currently does not provide coaches and teachers with the knowledge and confidence to deliver movement competency training to youth players. Development of coach and physical education programmes is needed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Culturally appropriate delivery of injury prevention workshops should be included in national governing bodies coaching awards or as continuing professional development for those who coach youth sport.

Acknowledgements:

This work was supported by the Prince Faisal Bin Fahad Award for Sports Research.