Representative co-design: Utilising a source of experiential knowledge for athlete development and performance preparation

Contemporary models for athlete development and performance preparation in sport have advocated a role re-conceptualisation for coaches grounded as learning environment designers. Within this re-conceptualisation, expert practitioners are encouraged to draw upon their experiential knowledge to design representative and meaningful learning activities that place the performer-environment interaction at its core. However, we propose that currently, a critical source of experiential knowledge is often overlooked within the process of learning design – that of performers. Specifically, practitioner-performer interactions could enrich the design of learning environments by promoting the utilisation of soliciting affordances and encouraging the psychological engagement of performers. This position paper introduces the concept of representative co-design – a notion which builds on existing research by framing how the insights and experiences of performers can be negotiated within the design of practice tasks that seek to faithfully simulate interacting constraints of competition to enrich learning environments. We frame the notion of representative co-design, and contend its importance within more contemporary athlete development and performance preparation models, at two levels: (i) that of enriching physical education curricula to develop thought provoking, ‘intelligent’ child/adolescent learners, and (ii) that of enriching contemporary athlete preparation models in high-performance sport to enhance learning and engagement, and to develop ‘next generation’ coaches within current athletes. To bring this conceptualisation to life, we present two exemplars demonstrating the notion of representative co-design, while concurrently highlighting areas for future empirical research.