Developmental Experiences and Well-Being in Sport: The Importance of the Coaching Climate

Abstract

26The present study explored the relationships between the coaching climate, youth 27 developmental experiences (personal and social skills, cognitive skills, goal setting, and DEVELOPMENTAL EXPERIENCES AND WELL-BEING IN SPORT 3Positive youth development refers to "strength-based and asset-building approaches to 49 developmental research in which youth are viewed as resources to be developed rather than 50 problems to be solved" (Holt, Sehn, Spence, Newton, & Ball, 2012, p. 98 Engström, & Skirstad, 1996). It is not just the high participation numbers that make youth 54 sport an ideal setting for development; it is the interactive, emotional, and socially involved 55 nature of sports that provide opportunities for development (Danish, Forneris, Hodge, & 56 Heke, 2004; Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2005; Hellison, Martinek, & Walsh, 2008). 57Previous research has shown sport to be related to a variety of developmental 66The above research provides evidence that young people are having a variety of interact. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate both the antecedents and 84 consequences of developmental experiences within youth sport. 85The present study focused on the following developmental experiences: personal and 86 social skills, cognitive skills, goal setting, and initiative. Learning these particular skills is and sport/exercise (Burton, Naylor, & Holliday, 2001 research is needed to explore how sport can promote these experiences. 101 Antecedents of Developmental Experiences 102Given the central role coaches play in sport, the coaching climate is one factor that 103 influences young people's sports experiences (Smith & Smoll, 1996 160In this study, self-esteem was defined as "a person's evaluation of, or attitude toward, The Present Study 170The general purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between coach 171 autonomy support, developmental experiences within sport and psychological well-being. Self-esteem. Self-esteem was measured using the general-self subscale of the Self- Analysis Strategy 261We tested the mediation hypotheses for all three dependent variables: self-esteem, 262positive affect, and satisfaction with life. As statistical techniques to test mediation (e.g., 263Baron & Kenny method, 1986) suffer from problems including: low statistical power, a lack 264 of quantification of the intervening effect, and the inability to test multiple mediators 277 Results 278 Preliminary Analysis 279The data was screened for univariate and multivariate outliers, with 10 313Results of the indirect effects are presented in Table 2. The values in the Table show whether 314 there is a total indirect effect and what effect, if any, each of the four mediators are having. 315From the three models in Figure 1, one can see that coach autonomy support was 316 related to all four mediators: personal and social skills (β = .17, p < .001), cognitive skills (β 317 = .20, p = .001), goal setting (β = .25, p < .001), and initiative (β = .11, p < .001). However...

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“…This element is reflected in the coaching actions, as the sports coaches placed a strong emphasis on team work and being part of a group. Cronin and Allen (2015) examined the relationship between the coaching climate, youth developmental experiences and psychological well-being and found that the effect of the coaching climate on psychological well-being was mediated via the development of personal and social skills (e.g. controlling one's emotions or relationship development).…”

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