Coaches' Qualifications and Athletes' Achievement in Sports Academies in Kenya

Coaches are the most contiguous stakeholders to the athlete in the sports talent development process, hence their qualifications can neither be underestimated nor ignored in projecting the athletes' achievement. Little research has however been done to examine the qualifications of coaches and trainers in sports academies, and how the same relates to athletes' achievement. This study, therefore, examined coaches' qualifications and athletes' achievement in sports academies in Kenya. A total of 102 sports academy coaches sampled from 19 sports academies were involved. The study employed a cross - sectional mixed - methods design to generate both qualitative and quantitative data. It was hypothesized that there was no statistically significant relationship between the qualifications of coaches and athletes' achievement in sports academies in Kenya. The study found that a majority of coaches (60.7%) had a coaching experience of less than 5 years in the sports academy; a majority agreed that coaches in sports academies had high professional qualifications; a majority (35.7%) had a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) as the highest academic qualification; the majority agreed that higher academic qualifications were important for effective athlete coaching; and there was a strong, positive correlation between the qualification of coaches and athletes' achievement, which was statistically significant (? = 0.424, p ? 0.05). The study recommended that the Ministry of Sports Culture and Heritage should in liaison with relevant stakeholders develop and administer refresher courses for sports administrators and coaches of sports training institutions; sports academies should recruit coaches with higher academic and professional qualifications; coaches should undertake refresher courses regularly to upgrade and update their coaching skills and competencies.