Dag André Nilsen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sport and Social Sciences. On August 21, 2025, 10:15—16:00 he will defend his dissertation titled Uncovering the Field of Sports Coaches’ Talent Mindsets in Norway: Current States, Professional Developmental Potential, and Implications for Coaching Behavior at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Auditorium Innsikt.
About the study
In Norway, sports are among the most popular leisure activities for children and youth. Coaches play a key role in creating a positive training environment that can foster physical, psychological, and social well-being. But how can we help coaches improve in this area?
Based on knowledge of individuals’ mindset and psychological interventions, this project aimed to enhance coach education programs and help coaches create training environments that promote learning and development. Specifically, the study examined whether and how a coach education program can help develop what is known as a growth mindset in coaches. A growth mindset is the belief that talent and skills can be developed through effort and learning.
This stands in contrast to a fixed mindset, where talent and skills are perceived as innate and unchangeable. Coaches’ mindsets were viewed as crucial for how they perceive both their own and their athletes’ potential for development and growth. This influences how coaches assess athletes’ talent and how they facilitate development and learning for all athletes, regardless of innate abilities and early success.
Research Questions and Methodology
The project focused on three main questions:
- What mindset do coaches hold about talent, and is there a foundation for developing coaches’ growth mindset among adult coaches in Norway?
- Is it possible to develop or strengthen coaches’ growth mindset by integrating an intervention into a coach education program, and what might promote or undermine such a change?
- To what extent does the development or strengthening of a growth mindset lead to changes in coaching behavior, and how do athletes perceive any such changes?
The project utilized a sequential mixed-methods design and was structured around four articles. In the first article, the concept of “mindset” was operationalized, followed by a survey of coaches’ mindsets in Norwegian sports. Data was collected as part of a national mapping study of 3,830 coaches. The study also examined whether coaches’ mindsets differed based on their sport affiliation, age, gender, and nationality. Additionally, it examined the age at which coaches believe talent can be identified in their sport, controlling for these variables and exploring how mindsets influenced these beliefs.
By developing and integrating a mindset intervention into a coach education program, the second and third articles investigated whether coaches’ growth mindset could be changed or reinforced. At the same time, the project identified factors that might promote or hinder such changes—for example, how the education program was delivered, coaches’ perceptions of the culture in both the program and their sporting environment, and their personal experiences.
The intervention was developed, implemented, and evaluated in a two-step process. This meant it was executed twice, and both quantitative and qualitative data were used to adjust the content and assess the intervention’s potential effect on coaches’ growth mindset. In the fourth and final article, a case study was conducted to investigate whether a change in coaches’ growth mindset contributed to altered coaching behavior, and how this change was experienced in a practical training setting. Interviews examined coaches’ behavior from both the coaches’ and their athletes’ perspectives. This comprehensive approach provided a holistic understanding of how coach education programs can strengthen coaches’ mindsets and thereby create better training environments.
Results
Findings from the national survey showed that, on average, coaches tended to have a growth mindset regarding athlete talent. This was consistent with data measured among teachers, suggesting that individuals in educational positions are more likely than the general population to report a growth mindset. However, there remains some uncertainty about whether the higher average truly reflects a “genuine” growth mindset—whether coaches genuinely believe that talent can be developed—or if this is influenced by the culture they are part of.
This uncertainty stems from the possibility that learning and development may represent core values of Norwegian sports, aligning with the education system. Individuals working in such organizations may be more inclined to express views consistent with these values. These assumptions were confirmed during the evaluation of the second iteration of the intervention, where quantitative data indicated that coaches—despite reporting a high growth mindset at the outset—achieved even higher scores after participating in the intervention.
The statistical change in coaches’ growth mindset was as significant as the difference observed in the national survey between coaches who believed talent could be identified before the age of 12 and those who did not associate talent identification with a specific age. The effect of changes in the coaches’ growth mindset was reinforced by qualitative interviews, which indicated that coaches had altered their views on talent identification and how they worked to support athletes’ development and learning in training environments. The case study results confirmed the coaches’ self-reported changes. Athletes also confirmed observing changes in their coaches, with several shared perceptions of how training was now conducted.
Still, it is worth noting that a change in focus may be perceived negatively by athletes—something coaches and coach developers should be aware of when working to create positive training environments for all participants. Despite Norwegian coaches reporting a growth mindset toward athlete talent, this project demonstrated that it is both feasible and beneficial to develop coaches’ growth mindset by integrating an intervention into a coach education program.
Read the thesis here
Committee
Chair
- Associate Professor Siv Gjesdal, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
Opponents
- Professor Kristoffer Henriksen, Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark
- Professor Silje Endresen Reme, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Main Supervisor: Professor Anne Marte Pensgaard, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
- Associate Professor Thorsteinn Sigurjonsson, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Program
- 10.15-11.00: Trial lecture: “Theories of Behavior Change and their Relevance to Interventions Targeting Coach Development”
- 11.00-16.00: Public defense of the thesis: Uncovering the Field of Sports Coaches’ Talent Mindsets in Norway: Current States, Professional Developmental Potential, and Implications for Coaching Behavior
Practical info
The defense will be chaired by Rector Aage Radmann
The defense is open to everyone and will be streamed on NIH’s YouTube channel.
