Education and Years of Experience as Determinants of Coaches’ Training Needs Relating to Coaching and Mentoring Skills for Professional Practice in Benue State

Purpose: This study assessed education and years of experience as determinants of coaching and mentoring skills for professional practice in Benue State to assess the differences in coaching and mentoring skills based on educational qualification and years of experience. Methods: and Materials: The research design that was adopted for this study was survey research design. The Population of the study consisted of all the coaches of Benue State Sports Council Makurdi. One hundred and sixty two (162) coaches of Benue State Sports Council were used for the study. A structured questionnaire developed by the researcher was used for data collection in the study. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse differences in coaches’ level of education in coaching and mentoring skills. The independent sample t-test was used to find out years of experience differences in coaching and mentoring skills. All the analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 23) at 0.05 level of significance. Findings: The mean rating by coaches on their training needs ranged between 2.78 and 3.00. The analysis further indicated that, there is a significant difference in the mean ratings of educational level of coaches in Benue State on training needs relating to coaching and mentoring skills (p 0.05). Conclusion: The study concluded that more experienced coaches should be aware that as coaches they are leaders and mentors and should build their capacity to maintain and sustain their wellbeing and that of others for their professional practice.