Referee and coach education in sports: Case of Taekwondo with focus on the Oceania Region

Abstract

Since becoming an Olympic medal sport, the sport of Taekwondo has been going through considerable transformation resulting in an almost continual series of changes to the sport's rules and subsequently interpretations of those rules. This work's focus is to examine the problems facing the sport's stakeholders in the education of the coaches and referees specifically in relation to the Oceania Region, and to provide some guidelines to a more effective model for the delivery of the sport's education. Through a qualitative case study using phenomenological interviews, current educational offerings at both the global and regional levels were examined. Factors impacting on providing a consistent education platform were identified. Drawing on the results and on the literature, recommendations are made for further work to provide directions to future work to address the educational issues and problems in the Oceania region.