Research has shown how social and cultural factors continually shape an athlete's development journey. For example, the types of practice designed, in which individuals are identified as talented and the characteristics that distinguish a good coach, are continually shaped by sociocultural constraints. This potential for a myriad of possible complex and ill-defined challenges (a wicked problem), highlights a need for a framework to guide both research and practice within specific sports organizations. In this paper, we present the Learning in Development Research Framework (LDRF), a deeply contextualized, transdisciplinary approach to action research that is founded in ecological dynamics that utilizes the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) to capture the role of sociocultural forces in shaping athlete development. Further, we present a practical example from a professional football club highlighting the main aim of the LDRF: that player development frameworks should evolve in, interaction with the specific sociocultural context in which practitioners and individuals are embedded. The implication is that there are no 'copy and paste' templates. Practitioners and applied scientists should seek to comprehend the distinct contextual complexities of cultures, communities and situations as they encounter them, co-creating practices that, respectively, amplify and dampen helpful and unhelpful aspects of sport forms of life.

As it is appreciated that learning is a non-linear process – implying that coaching methodologies in sport should be accommodative – it is reasonable to suggest that player development pathways should also account for this non-linearity. A constraints-led approach (CLA), predicated on the theory of ecological dynamics, has been suggested as a viable framework for capturing the non-linearity of learning, development and performance in sport. The CLA articulates how skills emerge through the interaction of different constraints (task-environment-performer). However, despite its well-established theoretical roots, there are challenges to implementing it in practice. Accordingly, to help practitioners navigate such challenges, this paper proposes a user-friendly framework that demonstrates the benefits of a CLA. Specifically, to conceptualize the non-linear and individualized nature of learning, and how it can inform player development, we apply Adolph’s notion of learning IN development to explain the fundamental ideas of a CLA. We then exemplify a learning IN development framework, based on a CLA, brought to life in a high-level youth football organization. We contend that this framework can provide a novel approach for presenting the key ideas of a CLA and its powerful pedagogic concepts to practitioners at all levels, informing coach education programs, player development frameworks and learning environment designs in sport.

Composition pedagogy is explored from the perspective of a composer and a music teacher educator in this article. The primary goal is to help practicing music teachers develop strategies that will encourage students to create original music. The authors provide reflection about the process of helping students compose on the basis of personal experience composing and teaching young composers, via the work of leading scholars in music education and by using narrative excerpts and musical examples. Key strategies are identified that contribute to the successful teaching of composition, particularly at the beginning, middle, and the end of musical compositions. Contributing most notably to this discussion is the use of terminology in teacher feedback.