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It's all in the timing: The examination of athletes' preferences and perceptions of their coaches' leadership strategies throughout the course of an athletic season
Abstract
This investigation examines athletes' preferences and perceptions and coaches' perceptions of leadership strategies utilized throughout the course of an athletic season. The review of literature identified an existing limitation to the current examine of coaching strategies. Past researchers have failed to include time as a potential variable affecting athletes' preferences and perceptions of their coach's use of five leadership strategies (autocratic, democratic, social support, positive feedback, and training and instruction). The subjects for this study included 155 varsity wrestler and 17 coaches from two midwestern states. Athletes and coaches completed instruments three times during the season and repeated measures procedures computed for the five primary research questions indicated significant differences for each. The results demonstrate that when measured across time, athletes' preferences for autocratic, social support, positive feedback and training and instruction leadership strategies changed from the beginning, middle, and end of the season. Athletes' perceptions of their coach's autocratic, social support, and training and instruction leadership strategies also varied from the beginning, middle and end of the season. Coaches' perceptions of their use of positive feedback leadership strategies altered from the beginning, middle and end of the season. When examining the impact athlete experience level had, results indicated that only athletes' perceptions of their coach's social support strategies are affected by the experience level of the athletes across time. Also, athletes' perceptions of their coaches' autocratic leadership strategies for successful and unsuccessful teams were significantly different at the end of the season. Coaches' perceptions of their use of autocratic strategies varied for experienced and inexperienced coaches at the end of the season. The final analysis examined the relationship between athletes' and coaches' overall satisfaction with their sport and each of the leadership strategies. Results suggest that athletes' affect toward their sport was significantly correlated with the coach's use of positive feedback, social support, and training and instruction strategies. There was a significant relationship between coaches' affect toward their sport and use of positive feedback and social support strategies during the middle of the season only.
Subject Area
Communication|Physical education
Recommended Citation
Turman, Paul David, "It's all in the timing: The examination of athletes' preferences and perceptions of their coaches' leadership strategies throughout the course of an athletic season" (2000). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9973605.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9973605