Coping rarely takes place in a social vacuum: Exploring antecedents and outcomes of dyadic coping in coach-athlete relationships

ObjectivesDespite widespread acceptance that coping is an interpersonal phenomenon, sport psychology research has focused largely on athletes' and coaches’ ways of coping individually. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore coping from an interpersonal perspective (i.e., dyadic coping) in coach-athlete relationships.Methodology and methodsAntecedents and outcomes of dyadic coping were discussed with five coach-athlete dyads. We conducted individual interviews with athletes and coaches and then one interview with each coach-athlete dyad. Interviews were analyzed using dyadic analysis and composite vignettes were created to present the data. Methodological rigor was enhanced by focusing on credibility, resonance, rich rigor, significant contribution, and meaningful coherence.ResultsFive themes were identified. These represented the essence of dyadic coping (theme: the essence of dyadic coping), antecedents of dyadic coping (themes: lock and key fit, friendship and trust, communication of the stressor), and outcomes of dyadic coping (theme: protection and support). The first theme captures coaches' and athletes’ understanding of dyadic coping. The antecedent themes represent the factors that were necessary for dyadic coping to occur. Protection and support relates to the positive nurturing environment that was discussed as an outcome of dyadic coping.ConclusionThe results extend published research by exploring antecedents and outcomes of dyadic coping in sport. The findings highlight that dyadic coping was prevalent in coach-athlete relationships when various antecedents (lock and key fit, friendship and trust, communication of the stressor) existed. Protection and support were pertinent outcomes of dyadic coping that contributed to personal and relationship growth.     

Examining coach–athlete interactions using state space grids: An observational analysis in competitive youth sport

Objective

The purpose of this study was to compare the coach–athlete interaction structures of two competitive youth synchronized swimming teams differentiated on the basis of level of success.

Design

This comparison was a pilot test of the state space grid (SSG) observational methodology (Hollenstein, 2007) in sport settings.

Method

Two teams (two head coaches and 17 athletes in total) were observed over five training sessions. Coach and athlete behaviour was coded continuously for the duration of each training session. Measures of coach–athlete interaction were derived from these coded behaviours and compared between teams.

Results

Results revealed significant differences between the teams on measures of interaction variability, behavioural content patterns, and the sequencing of coach behaviours. The more successful team was characterized by less variable, more patterned interactions between coaches and athletes. The sequencing of coach behaviours for the more successful team emphasized the pairing of technical correction and positive reinforcement.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that positive environments characterized by a deliberate pattern of coach–athlete interaction may be associated with youth sport settings producing more satisfied and successful athletes. These results support the utility of SSGs for the analysis of interpersonal interactions in sport and highlight the unique insights made available through use of this methodology.     

Dyadic coping in coach-athlete relationships: A grounded theory

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to make an original contribution to sport psychology literature by offering a substantive grounded theory of dyadic coping in coach-athlete relationships. Specifically, this study aimed to capture the development and manifestation of dyadic coping for coaches and athletes operating in individual sports.DesignUsing constructionist grounded theory methodology as a guide, a theory of dyadic coping was constructed by the authors, 13 coaches, 15 athletes, and five sport and exercise psychology practitioners.MethodTheoretical sampling procedures ensured that data collection was directed by the developing theoretical concepts, rather than a set of predefined criteria. We conducted individual interviews (n = 16) with coaches and athletes, and one 90-min workshop with coaches, athletes, and sport and exercise psychology practitioners. Methodological rigor was enhanced by focusing on credibility, originality, resonance, and usefulness.ResultsThe theory proposes that when coaches and athletes appraise a stressor communicated in their dyad as significant and meaningful, they use dyadic coping to protect themselves and their coach-athlete relationships. This process is moderated by a number of personal (e.g., personality), relationship (e.g., length), and organizational (e.g., leadership behaviors) characteristics.ConclusionThe theory presented here represents a notable shift in thinking away from coping as an individual process and toward coping as an important interpersonal phenomenon. This type of coping can have long-term effects on coaches’ and athletes’ relationship functioning, well-being, and performance.     

Congruence of efficacy beliefs on the coach-athlete relationship and athlete anxiety: Athlete self-efficacy and coach estimation of athlete self-efficacy

This study’s purpose was to assess the extent to which congruence of athlete self-efficacy and Coach Estimation of Athlete Self-Efficacy (CEASE) is associated with coach-athlete relationship quality and athlete anxiety. Data were obtained from 71 British coach-athlete dyads from individual sports regarding athlete self-efficacy, CEASE, coach-athlete relationship quality, and athlete anxiety. Polynomial regression analyses were conducted to assess congruence, with significant interactions depicted in surface response graphs. Athlete self-efficacy was significant in predicting athlete perceptions of relationship quality and CEASE was significant in predicting coach perceptions of relationship quality, but neither directly predicted the other person’s relationship perceptions. Congruence (of athlete self-efficacy and CEASE) was significant in predicting athlete, but not coach, perceptions of relationship quality. Athlete anxiety was not significantly predicted. Overall, results from the study suggest that the coach-athlete relationship is enhanced when coaches and athletes have congruent perceptions of efficacy, with more cooperative and effective interactions resulting from congruence at high and low efficacy.     

Creating the conditions for psychological safety and its impact on quality coach-athlete relationships

In this study, we investigated the notion that giving voice to athletes is an important aspect to creating a psychologically safe environment which can then feed into maintaining good quality coach-athlete relationships where every athlete feels heard, valued, and connected. 379 athletes completed a multi-section questionnaire that assessed their (a) capacity to be open and manage conflict with their coaches, (b) perceptions of psychological safety within their team or group, and (c) perceptions of the coach-athlete relationship quality. Structural equation modelling revealed that openness and conflict management positively predicted psychological safety which, in turn, positively predicted coach-athlete relationship quality. Psychological safety was found to explain the association between athletes’ communication (i.e., capacity to be open, honest and transparent as well as manage interpersonal conflict effectively) and coach-athlete relationship quality regardless of athletes’ gender. These findings highlighted that if athletes have the capacity to have candid discussions and can navigate conflict with their coaches, then it is possible to feel psychologically safe and thus able to engage in risky interpersonal interactions (e.g., raise concerns, admit mistakes) within their group context without fear of intimidation and humiliation. Furthermore, it was revealed that such a psychologically safe group environment fostered athletes’ trust and respect, as well as commitment and cooperation with their coach. The discussion provides links to theory, research and practice.     

Interpersonal perceptions of personality traits in elite coach-athlete dyads

IntroductionThe extent to which coaches and athletes can effectively work together is an essential consideration in the pursuit of athletic success. This is particularly important at the elite level due to the high pressures on tangible outcomes, such as reaching the podium of a major competition. This study sought to explore and explain how both coaches and athletes identify personality traits in themselves and their partners to manage and maintain a positive relationship.MethodsUsing a mixed methodological design underpinned by critical realism, four elite coach-athlete dyads (four male coaches, one male athlete, three female athletes) were purposefully recruited from a single sport. Each participant completed the 44-item Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999) on their own and their partner’s perceived personality traits. The data generated were used to inform the discussions in follow-up, individual semi-structured interviews with all participants.ResultsThe interview data were analysed using thematic analysis, which generated three higher themes and seven lower order themes. The three higher order themes were perceived compatibility, relationship persona and collective personality.ConclusionThe present investigation has identified what coaches and athletes perceive to be the key personality characteristics to manage and maintain a successful working relationship.     

Exploring Debriefing in Sports: A Qualitative Perspective

This study explored athletes’ and coaches’ experience of debriefing. Six coaches and 11 athletes (M age = 21.09, SD = 3.30) of different competitive levels and sports participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants’ experiences reflected that debriefing was generally employed for performance evaluation and learning purposes. Psychological benefits of debriefing were seen as a by-product rather than an aim of the process. The power differential in some coach-athlete relationships was identified as limiting debriefing efficacy. From an applied perspective, the results highlight the need to increase athletes’ active participation in the debriefing process and to improve coaches’ and athletes’ understanding of psychological recovery.     

“All I have to do is pass”: A discursive analysis of student athletes' talk about prioritising sport to the detriment of education to overcome stressors encountered in combining elite sport and tertiary education

ObjectivesIncreasingly, athletes are expected to undertake tertiary education contemporaneously with their sporting careers. However, to do so may prove difficult and stressful. Exploration of the stressors encountered by student-athletes in combining the two pursuits is limited. There is also limited research examining whether combining the two pursuits impacts upon sporting or educational success.Design and methodA discursive psychological approach was employed, examining twenty interviews conducted with Australian athletes enrolled in tertiary education, exploring how athletes integrated sport and education.ResultsWithin the interviews, athletes constructed their primary academic goal as to ‘just pass’. Athletes repeatedly presented themselves as sacrificing educational success to integrate the two pursuits. Moreover, athletes constructed accounts of themselves as prioritising sport, but as passive in decision-making around priorities. In doing so, athletes produced accounts that removed their own agency for their sacrificed academic success. The interviewees also constructed time as a barrier to the successful integration of sport and education. In the dataset time was constructed either as fixed, limited and externally controlled, or as flexible and controllable.ConclusionsThese alternate constructions allowed athletes to remove agency for poor educational outcomes, or conversely, enabled them to present themselves as successfully able to integrate sport and education. Thus, differing constructions of time were used to achieve different rhetorical ends. Implications and interventions for supporting student athletes successfully to combine sport and education are discussed.     

Canadian athletes' perspectives of mental health care and the importance of clinicians' sport knowledge: A multi-method investigation

The purpose of this inquiry was to explore Canadian competitive athletes' perspectives on their mental health care experiences using a sequential multi-method design. The overarching aims of the study were to explore athletes' self-reported reasons for seeking mental health care, their awareness of their clinician's knowledge of sport, and the importance they placed on their clinician having knowledge of the sport context. A sequential mixed methods design was employed in which two studies were conducted to address these aims. In study one, 70 current and former Canadian athletes completed a short survey assessing basic demographics, athletes' reasons for seeking treatment, and the importance they placed on their clinician having sport knowledge for effective care. In study two, ten athletes participated in individual semi-structured interviews in which similar topics were explored. Fifty-six percent of surveyed athletes reported that their clinicians' knowledge of sport did not impact their treatment experience, however only 29% reported being aware of their clinician having such knowledge. Thematic analysis of the interview data suggested that the connectedness of athletes' mental health issues and sport participation played a role in the importance they placed on their clinician having sport knowledge. Key components of a successful therapeutic alliance included the clinician validating the importance of sport, normalizing athlete mental health challenges, and understanding the demands of the competitive sport culture. Conclusions of this inquiry include that assessing how inter-related an athlete perceives their mental health challenges and sport participation to be, and demonstrating an understanding of the importance of sport in competitive athletes' lives, are likely helpful strategies in working clinically with this population even if a clinician does not have specific experience with the sport context.     

Investigating Elite End-of-Athletic-Career Transition: A Systematic Review

This article presents a systematic review of the literature investigating factors that contribute to a successful end-of-career transition among elite athletes. The systematic review included 10 studies that focused on elite athlete retirement that in part measured positive outcomes, which fall under the flourishing construct. Results indicated that although there has been an abundance of research examining multiple effects of transition out of sport among elite athletes, there appears to be no current literature explicitly examining flourishing within this elite population. The results of the review have practical implications for sport psychology practitioners who are aiming to facilitate a successful transition for elite athletes through their end-of-athletic-career transition. The findings from the systematic review are discussed, and the article provides recommendations for future research and for current applied practice.     

Perceived relative importance of psychological and physical factors in successful athletic performance

Ratings of the perceived relative importance of psychological and physical factors for successful athletic performance were obtained from 29 men and 53 women in sports of track, swimming, soccer, volleyball, basketball, gymnastics, baseball or softball, tennis, diving, and golf, by level of competition (high school, college, and professional), and sex of athlete. The over-all rating of the relative importance of psychological factors was 39%. Significant differences in the ratings of the relative importance of psychological factors were found for sport, level, sex, sport x level, and level x sex. Ratings of the relative importance of psychological factors for successful performance in various sports increased in the order listed above. The significant effect for level and interaction of sport x level were accounted for primarily by the higher ratings given to professional golf. The significant effect of sex and the interaction of sex x level were attributable to higher ratings of the importance of psychological variables for high school women athletes as compared to high school men athletes.     

Social-contextual and intrapersonal antecedents of coaches' basic need satisfaction: The intervening variable effect of providing autonomy-supportive coaching

ObjectivesBased on Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2012) and in line with Mageau and Vallerand's (2003) motivational model of the coach-athlete relationship, a new model involving antecedents associated with coaches' self-report measure of total need satisfaction (TNS) was tested. This model hypothesized that: (1) coaches' perceptions of a socially united group of athletes and their self-determined motivation for coaching would relate positively to coaches' provision of autonomy-supportive coaching (ASC), whereas perception of parental pressure in the youth sport context would relate negatively to coaches' provision of ASC; (2) coaches' provision of ASC towards their athletes would, in turn, relate positively to their self-report measure of TNS; and (3) the relation between coaches' perceptions of the sport context, along with their self-determined motivation for coaching, and coaches' self-report measure of TNS would be mediated by coaches' own provision of ASC.DesignA cross-sectional study.MethodsParticipants were 222 (M_age = 42.3, SD = 6.1) youth soccer coaches.ResultsSEM analyses supported the hypothesized model in which coaches' perceptions of a socially united group of athletes and their self-determined motivation for coaching related positively to coaches' self-report measure of TNS through coaches' provision of ASC. In contrast, coaches' perceptions of parental pressure in the youth sport context was unrelated to coaches' self-report measure of TNS via coaches' provision of ASC.ConclusionsFindings support previous research by demonstrating the psychological benefit of providing autonomy support to others.     

Sources and Types of Confidence Identified by World Class Sport Performers

This study identified the sources and types of confidence salient to 14 (7 male, 7 female) successful World Class athletes. Nine sources of confidence were identified: Preparation, performance accomplishments, coaching, innate factors, social support, experience, competitive advantage, self-awareness, and trust. A testament to the multi-dimensional nature of sport confidence, six types of sport confidence were also identified: skill execution, achievement, physical factors, psychological factors, superiority to opposition, and tactical awareness. Gender was related to both the sources of confidence and the subsequent types of confidence experienced by the athletes. For example, females placed more importance on good personal performances than males who derived confidence from winning. Results were discussed in the context of previous sport confidence literature and implications for sport psychology and coaching practices were drawn.     

Differences Between High- and Low-Confident Football Players on Imagery Functions: A Consideration of the Athletes' Perceptions

Abstract

Over the years it has been proven that the use of imagery can be a highly effective performance-enhancement technique in sport and that confidence is the most consistent psychological construct in distinguishing highly successful athletes from less successful ones. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between imagery use and confidence by high- and low-confident athletes. Recent research has suggested and shown that different athletes use the same image for different functions. These studies question the usefulness of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) as it consists of 30 images that comprise 5 functions. In this study, an original and a modified version of the SIQ were used. The modified SIQ took into account that different athletes could use the same image for different functions as it computed the SIQ function scores according to the athletes' perceptions. Seventy-nine male collegiate football players participated. It was found that the imagery–confidence relationship differed according to how the SIQ subscale scores were computed.     

It takes two to tango: Using the actor-partner interdependence model for studying the coach-athlete relationship

Research has repeatedly shown the importance of the relationship between a coach and an athlete. Despite these findings, we argue that the approaches used in previous research fail to sufficiently consider the dyadic and bidirectional nature of the coach-athlete relationship. Although the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) was already proposed as a useful methodology for investigating and understanding the coach-athlete relationship, its potential has been underexploited in sport psychology. We discuss the possibly misleading conclusions that can be drawn from studies with an individual rather than a dyadic perspective and we propose to closely examine the dyadic pattern that can be inferred from the APIM, rather than making a priori assumptions about it. Practical implementations of the APIM in user-friendly apps are envisaged, as are relevant extensions of the APIM that allow to answer more advanced research questions by using more complex designs.     

Perceived verbal aggressiveness of coaches in volleyball and basketball: a preliminary study

This study examined verbal aggressiveness of coaches as perceived by their athletes, 108 senior athletes (57 boys and 51 girls) ages 15-19 years. Participants were basketball players (56 athletes) and volleyball players (52 athletes) who completed questionnaires. The scale of verbal aggressiveness showed high internal consistency. A two-way analysis of variance, conducted using sex and sport as independent variables to examine interactions, yielded significant differences between adolescent volleyball and basketball athletes. Volleyball athletes had lower scores on the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale than basketball players. Research with larger samples and other sports is recommended.     

High-level athletes' perceptions of success in returning to sport following injury

ObjectiveFor many injured athletes, a safe and successful return to sport following injury is the ultimate aim of injury recovery. Little consensus exists however, regarding the meaning of a “successful” return to sport following injury recovery [Evans, L., Mitchell, I., &; Jones, S. (2006). Psychological responses to sport injury: a review of current research. In S. Hanton, &; S. D. Mellalieu (Eds.), Literature reviews in sport psychology (pp. 289–319). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers]. The purpose of this investigation was to obtain greater insight into this issue by examining high-level athletes' perceptions of a successful return to play following injury.MethodUsing a longitudinal design, 12 elite athletes from Australia and Canada were interviewed on a total of 40 occasions over a six–eight month period.ResultsPerceptions of success centered on (but were not limited to): a return to pre-injury levels and attaining pre-injury goals, staying on the “right” path, creating realistic expectations of post-injury performance, and remaining uninjured.ConclusionsConsistent with previous research [Podlog, L., &; Eklund, R. C. (2007a). Professional coaches perspectives on the return to sport following serious injury. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 1, 44–68], findings from this investigation highlight the importance of self-determination theory (SDT) constructs – namely, competence, autonomy and relatedness – in relation to athlete perceptions of a successful return to sport from injury. Such findings support the value of an SDT perspective in guiding future research and intervention efforts aimed at facilitating successful return from injury.