Do the coach and athlete have the same «picture» of the situation? Distributed Situation Awareness in an elite sport context

•We presented a method to assess the consistency of coach-athlete situation awareness.•Results revealed similarities and important differences between the athlete and coach.•Results suggest that SA information elements showed some common ground.•Coaches and athletes framed information elements differently to make sense of situation.

Athletes and their coach interpret the training situations differently and this can have important implications for the development of an elite athlete's performance. It is argued that, from a schema-theoretic perspective, the difference in these interpretations needs to be better understood. A post-performance, self-confrontation, interview was conducted with a number of athletes and their coaches. The interviews revealed differences between the athlete and their coach in the information they are aware of. In comparison with athletes, coaches more frequently compared the phenotype with genotype schemata rather than just describing the phenotype schemata. Results suggest SA information elements showed some common ground but also revealed some important differences between the athlete and coach. The awareness was directed externally towards the environment and internally, towards the individual, depending on his/her role. The investigation showed that the schemata used to ‘frame’ the information elements were different, but compatible, between athlete and coach.