Research Paper - (2013) Volume 3, Issue 1
Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran
Two key in elements the context of sport, including coaches and athletes. Effective and successful relationships between coaches and athletes is not an easy job, but is a speculative activity and specially requires interpersonal skills and training and thinking of coaches. In athletics, coaching requires the best ability of training and proper operation of high demand and this is directly related to mental fitness, or better to say top self efficacy of coaches. Infact the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of coaches self efficacy on the relationship between the coaches - athlete in sports leagues of Iran. Statistical population of the survey includes 121 male coaches and 721 male athletes of the sports leagues and 92 coaches and 256 athletes were considered sample of research. The survey Measuring scale includes Measuring scale of the relationship between the coach - athlete and a Measuring scale with 24 items of coaches self efficacy that has good validity and credibility. Finally, structural equation modeling with Lisrel software was used. The output of the software represents the best fit of the model and showed the effect of coaches self efficacy on relationship between coach - athlete is significant.
self efficacy, coach - athlete relationship
Today important of sport is no secret to anyone, Sport as an affecting social phenomenon influence all aspects of society and the lives of people and has become an integral part of life. Sport is an important part of culture and society and involves athletes and coaches at all stages of life. Important of position and role of coaches in the success or failure of the sports teams are not covered to any one [1].
Most human interactions, including efforts to affect on the others behavior. Effective and successful relationships between coaches and athletes is not an easy job but speculative activity and specifically requires interpersonal skills and Technician and thinking of coaches.
The coach means the trainer, the breeder and grower. In Sport a coach is someone who is in charge of works leading, giving instruction and training people of a sports team or a group of them or an athlete [2].
Effective coaches significantly affect the performance, behavior and motivational characteristics of athletes. Sullivan and Kent (2003) refer to coaching effectiveness as the ability of a coach to influence athletic performance [3].
Coach is responsible for improved student learning and the best way to achieve this goal is to create favorable conditions for learning, establishing appropriate and effective relationship between himself and his students and facilitating the learning. Techniques, methods, speech and actions of coaches significantly affect those they teach [4].
Athlete is one who regularly participate in sport and activities related to it. Athlete can be professional or Nonprofessional. Athlete or a trained person will compete in physical exercises involving strength, speed and endurance. Athletes participate in team and individual fields [5].
Studies have proved that the relationship between coach and athlete is including exchanges and behaviors that show the element of control, dominance and decisiveness in a coach and independence, friendship and accountability on both sides (coaches and athletes). Structures of coach - athlete relationship obtain of three elements including commitment, closeness and being complementary [4,6-8].
Most athletes, coaches and even sports remember the tournaments in which, despite the technical and physical preparation, poor mental preparation has been prevented of athlete or team success. Many sports psychologists believe that coaches and athletes in recent years have concluded that In order to achieve their goals they need more mental skills than physical skills [9].
Based on the theory and social context of Bandura [10], self efficacy in coaching, defines the extent and potential effectiveness of each coach in the learning and performance of their athletes [11] and includes four factors: strategy, motivation technique and the character.
Albert Bandura showed that self efficacy is a special case of self-confidence which means the power of individual believes that they can do the tasks they have been given, successfully. It should be noted that Individual performance in competitions can not be guessed and casual but there is a direct relationship between his performance and his self efficacy that its measurement is very effective in assessing his performance. Even by that his performance can be predicted before the competition. All of closeness and intimacy, commitment and complementary are important in establishing and maintaining successful and effective interactions [12]. Efficacy beliefs Provides prominent personal factors that have important applications in quality of athlete -coach Relationship. Efficacy beliefs may play important role in shaping the quality of relationship processes, as defined by the 3Cs of closeness, commitment, and complementary [13].
Close relationship between coach and athlete by creating a friendly and safe environment can avert their minds of worries and mental discomfort that may be created by the coach and focus on the exercise and lead to strong and successful performance of Individual or team. It should be noted that the performance of athletes in a competition dose not refer to himself, infact athlete converse demands and wishes of a group to success or failure. So the strengths and weaknesses of group is effective in the way an athlete perform his tasks. Of these factors which are associated with an athlete or sports team such as team manager, coach and technical staff by their actions and behaviors can provide positive or negative result for the athlete or team. Of course the role of environmental factors also should be ignored. It is the art of the coach that by his insight thoughts and positive interaction with athletes receives benefit from these factors in favor of his athletes and reaches to the proper performance and finally be wining. In this context we will investigate the effect of self efficacy on the coach – athlete relationship that can be considered as a predictive factor can be considered as a factor in sporting successes.
Statistical population of this survey are male coaches and athletes of sports leagues in team fields (football - basketball) and individual (wrestling - Taekwondo) including 121 coach of selected teams and 721 athletes (students of related coaches). Due to the size of population and random selection table of Morgan 92 coach and 256 athletes was chosen as sample from purpose statistical population.
Table 1. Coaches and athletes statistical sample of sports leagues
Measurement Instruments
1. Scale measure of coach – athlete relationship
The Coach–Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q); [14] assessed athletes’ and coaches’ relationship quality perceptions. This 11-item measure taps into perceptions of closeness, commitment, and complementary in the coach–athlete relationship (e.g., for athletes, ‘‘I like my coach’’ (closeness), ‘‘I feel committed to my coach’’ (commitment), and ‘‘When I am coached by my coach, I am ready to do my best’’ (complementary)). Item referents were modified to assess coaches’ perceptions (e.g., ‘‘I like my athlete’’). All items were accompanied by a Sevenpoint Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree), with higher scores representing more positive relational perceptions
2. 24 scale measure of coaches self efficacy
The Coaching Efficacy Scale (CES); [11] measured coaches’ self-efficacy beliefs. Coaches rated their confidence in their own ability across 24 coaching skills on a 10-point scale (0 = not at all confident to 9 = extremely confident). Statistical methods: To check the status of demographic variables, analysis of variance (ANOVAs) was used. To examine the reliability of the questions, the Cronbach's alpha and To check the validity of the test questions and to test meaningful relationships between the questions and variables and estimating obtained measurement models confirmatory factor analysis was used and finally in order to investigate the effect among research variables structural equation model (SEM) and specifically path analysis by Lisrel software was used.
By testing the main hypothesis of the study by structural equation modeling using LISREL software The impact of coaches self efficacy on relationship between the coach - athlete is 0/98 and its meaningful amount is 10/80(figure 1 and figure 2).so The main research hypothesis is confirmed in other words coaches self efficacy on relationship between the coach - athlete is effective. The output of software also shows the suitability of fitted structural model to test the hypotheses. RMSEA = 0, the chi-square equal to 37/30and degree of freedom is 13, and the values of GFI, AGFI and NFI is respectively 0/96, 0/92 and 0/92, which represents the total relatively good fit of the model (Table 1).
Figure 1: Model in the estimated coefficients standard
Figure 2: Model in the Meaningful coefficients
Table 2. Measurement model of self efficacy variable on coach – athlete relationship
Scale of coaching effectiveness, measures the coach believes in his capabilities to impress his athletes learning and their performance [15].
Obviously the thoughts, motives, feelings, and behavior of humans vary in situations where he feels confident in his ability and situations in which he feels insecurity or lack of competence.
Perceived self-efficacy of human affect one's thought patterns, motivation, performance and emotional arousal [16]. Perception of self-efficacy is like a cognitive mediator of human action. This perception Affect human thought and action. Athlete’s performance in a competition dose not refers only to him, indeed an athlete convert collective will to success or failure. According to exchange theory, symbolic interaction theory and "Bandura's social cognitive theory” environmental and situational factors are continuously are interacting to determine what we think and what we do. This theory stays that external determines and individual determinants of behavior, such as attitudes, norms and beliefs affect people's behavior. On the other hand, Bandura's social learning theory states that people’s attitudes and behaviors are affected by "significant others". Significant others can influence positive (reinforcing) or negative effects (inhibiting) on behavior and actions of individuals. Coaches that are the most influential person on the athlete and also other technical staff can provide positive or negative result for the athlete or team by their actions and behaviors. Thus, mental fitness or high self – efficacy of coaches has a great impact on the success of athletes.
Jowett and Frost [17] also state that coach - athlete relationship quality can be affected by many factors. These factors include: physical factors in relation to performance, psychology in relation to motivation, social in relation to "significant others" and environmental in relation to culture. Although several aspects influence on coach - athlete relationship but the psychological aspect is very important. Changes of result in competitions when the coach in the half-time or the rest of the players speak can attest to the important role of the coach.
When each sports club or organization can achieve its goals set for that have qualified and competent coaches. Trainers who could understand the condition and situation and understanding of mental and physical abilities of athletes and their subordinates and choice the best and most appropriate way to achieve the goals.
Vargas-Tonsing [18] states that the coaches have the potential to affect on self efficacy and emotions of athletes before the competition and through talking before the game. Olympiou, Jowett and Duda [19], in their research demonstrated that the features which included in the motivational climate created by the coach namely those that the importance of cooperation and progress was emphasized were along with experience of a higher level of intimacy, commitment and complementary with coach. Features which in the climate created by coach emphasized on punitive response to mistakes, competition and unequal recognition were along with lower level of intimacy, commitment and complementary with coach. Coach self efficacy is effective on deepen relation between coach and athlete and formed positive relationships will be followed with good performance and success of athletes. So it is better to achieve success, the coaches be aware of needs, motives and mental and physical characteristics of themselves and the players. Therefore, it is desirable that coaches and athletes have proper understanding of their psychological conditions and with mutual understanding of the relationships take a firm step towards success and pride.
Lafrenière et all [20], found that the coach’s passion is important in coach-athlete relationship. It seems that harmonious passion of coach matching with his obsessive passion leads to better relationship between coach and athlete. A coach who by introducing performance goals participate the athlete in coaching process, athletes considers athletes opinions, states expectations properly, show true passion to the lives of athletes raises intimacy and commitment of athletes to the coach and finally will improve the welfare of athletes. The data show that coaching passion has a significant impact on the welfare of athletes and their satisfaction of the relationship. Consequently, coaches should seek coaching intellectually and non defensive in order to help athlete’s growth and development psychologically. Considering that relationship between the coach - athlete can be as a factor that affect the athletic performance of athletes affect and self efficacy as person power to respond successfully to get a certain and desired outcome [21,22] and due to the presence a meaningful relationship between self efficacy and coach - athlete relationship in this study, increasing self efficacy among coaches through training is recommended. Because self efficacy can be used in many training programs to increase mental awareness of coaches to achieve success. And desirable relations formed between coach and athlete can lead to more fun and less withdrawal of sport.
Ultimately it is suggested to be held sports psychology counseling sessions for coaches and athletes to have necessary mental preparation to gain psychological conditions for success. It is hoped that the present research help coaches, athletes, organizations and sports teams in achieving their goals which is success.
In summary, findings of this study suggest that self efficacy beliefs of coaches play an important role in shaping good quality of relationship between them and their athletes, as defined by the 3Cs of closeness, commitment, and complementary. Considering the sensitivity and magnitude of the issue, evaluation of the impact of coaches self efficacy on relationship between the coach – athlete that promote positive interactions require continued, detailed scrutiny.
The researchers hereby extend their appreciation to the Research and Technology vice chancellor of Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch for sponsoring this project.
