Engaging in Paradigmatic Dialogue: A Bibliometric Analysis of Coaching Scholarship From 1970 to 2020

Coaching scholarship (CS) sits at the intersection of multiple paradigms and disciplines. Despite the eclectic nature of the field, most scholars operate only within their preferred paradigm, which limits how coaching is conceptualized and practiced. To address this limitation, we used the dialectic stance to analyze bibliometric records of CS produced between 1970 and 2020 from both an interpretivist and poststructuralist perspective. Using Web of Science, we identified 2,522 coaching articles and organized the bibliometric data into a time-ordered matrix representing five decades of CS: (a) number of publications per year, (b) country of origin, (c) institution, (d) journal, (e) author, and (f) most cited articles. Two research groups analyzed the data concurrently and independently using their respective paradigm. Next, the two groups came together to engage in dialogue and discover areas of convergence and divergence. Through the paradigmatic dialogue, the interpretivist research group realized they were operating in a postpositivist paradigm. Nevertheless, both groups determined CS was heavily influenced by Western societies, sport psychology, and the topic of motivation. The postpositivists highlighted evolutionary trends in CS, while the poststructuralists elucidated relations of power, understudied problems, and the consequences of the dominant knowledge produced.