Short presentation over week 2 readings

1. Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Curtis, B. (1979) Coach
effectiveness training: A cognitive-behavioral
approach to enhancing relationship skills in youth
sport coaches. Journal of Sport Psychology, 1, 59-
75.
Tyler Goad and Karl Zang

2. Qualitative Analysis of Coaching
Behaviors and Athlete Perceptions
• Coaching behaviour impacts players
perceptions of participation
– Negative or positive
– Modify behaviour to increase positive perceptions
• Provides data of player perceptions of
‘educated’ coaches
– More positive perceptions of coach/team/self
over control

3. Background and Significance
• Coaches already identified as impacting player
perceptions
• Modifying coach behaviour to increase
likelihood of positive youth sport experience
• Behaviour modification and self-assessment
for positive communicating coaches.

4. Methods
• Training session: Experimental coaches only
– Verbal and written instructions for behavior modification
– Self-monitoring procedures explained
• Observations
– Behaviors of first two weeks of the season and two complete games
– Coaches urged to increase reinforcement to 25%
– Observers had no knowledge of trained/control coaches
• Player perceptions/attitudes
– Players individually interviewed
• Recall tests (your coach did x. how often does he do x 1-7 never-almost always)
• Reaction to participation: 11 questions, also 1-7 scale, varied by question asked
– Adapted Coopersmith’s (1967) self-esteem inventory

5. Analysis Methods
• Coaching Behaviours catalogued and statistically
analysed in terms of usage
– Stepwise discriminant analysis
– Found significant group difference for reinforcement category.
– http://youtu.be/I99yEypRJHY?t=17m18s
• Player perception and attitudes statistically analysed
– Experimental and Control Groups compared
– Found significant group differences on six of the perceived
behaviour categories. R, EM, and General technical
instruction.
• Players Perceptions, attitudes, and self-esteem

6. Findings/Main arguments
• Coach education leads to more positive experiences and
perceptions of youth sport
– More likely to play again
• Win-loss record has no significant correlation on
perceptions
• Positive reinforcement positively affects multiple
perceptions
– Coach, team, and self
– Most significant increase in attitudes toward trained coaches
among children with low self-esteem

7. Conclusions/Implications for Future
Research
• Trained coaches overall positive effect on
players participation experience
• Use larger coaching sample
– Small number of coaches and multiple variables
could have skewed results
• Youth sports untapped market of sport
psychology research

8. Questions?
• How are youth coaches trained today?
• Is this the right kind of training?
• What do coaches want from and educational
program?