Dealing with complex training topic: when digital technologies become cognitive technologies for coaches and players

This paper presents and examines an experimental football training program providing original and articulated uses of digital technologies to support collective actions learning. Jointly designed by researchers and trainers, these uses are conceptualized from a specific theoretical framework. A transformative research protocol in two phases was therefore implemented with three football coaches engaged in the UEFA A-grade Football Coaching course. Firstly, the training phase consisted in training these three coaches to design, teach, supervise learning and evaluate collective actions by using digital technologies. Secondly, the intervention phase consisted in involving the coaches in the deployment of this experimental football training program in their own coaching context. Using self-confrontation interviews with coaches and re-enactments interviews with players, this research analyses their activities during this intervention phase. The results highlight that, under specific conditions, digital technologies can constitute cognitive technologies as they can sustain and enrich coaches’ activities, as well as those of the players, faced with the complex nature of collective actions.