Psychological Foundations of Coaching: Similarities and Differences among Intercollegiate Wrestling Coaches

Abstract

This study was designed to assess the psychological principles used by coaches and to determine if various categories of coaches differed in the psychological skills and strategies they employed. Intercollegiate wrestling coaches (N=101) completed an extensive survey that assessed their opinions concerning the importance of, use of, frequency of problems arising with, and degree of success they feel they have had in changing or developing 21 psychological skills. Descriptive statistics revealed that the psychological attributes of mental toughness, positive attitude, individual motivation, and attention-concentration were judged to be most important for success in wrestling. Anxiety-stress control, attention-concentration, lack of confidence, and mental toughness were reported as the areas in which wrestlers most frequently experienced problems. The coaches indicated that the strategies most easily developed with their athletes were goal setting, team cohesion, and mental practice-imagery. Finally, the coaches felt they were most successful in enhancing team cohesion and communication, and developing sportsmanship and goal setting. Discriminant function analyses revealed that coaches who had attended USA wrestling sport science certification clinics significantly differed on several psychological principles from coaches who had not attended clinics. Coaching education implications of the results are discussed, and future research recommendations are forwarded.

The Development and Maintenance of Mental Toughness in the World’s Best Performers

“…For many years the term mental toughness has been associated with sporting excellence and highlighted as an important psychological contributor to successful performance (Gould, Hodge, Peterson, & Petlichkoff, 1987) and winning Olympic titles (Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffett, 2002). Despite such reports, the majority of mental toughness explanations have emanated from anecdotal evidence, and only recently have researchers investigated the concept of mental toughness using empirical methods (for reviews, see Connaughton & Hanton, 2009;.…”

Sources of knowledge acquisition: perspectives of the high school teacher/coach

“…Since the earl y 1990s there has been a growing body of research that has utilized qualitative research techniques to investigate the cognitive dimensions of coaching Cregan et al, 2007;Gould, Hodge, Peterson, & Petlichkoff, 1987;Sage, 1989;Vallée & Bloom, 2005). The majority of this research has supported the view that expertise in coaching is based on the mental skills and knowledge that coaches possess rather than their behavior in any given situation (Woodman, 1993).…”

Lay perceptions of mental toughness: Understanding conceptual similarities and differences between lay and sporting contexts

“…Because mental toughness has often been cited by researchers, coaches and athletes as an influential psychological factor in sporting success Denison, 2007;Gould, Hodge, Peterson & Petlichkoff, 1987;Holland, Woodcock, Cumming, & Duda, 2010), sports psychologists and researchers have collected sizeable literatures pertaining to the conceptualisation, measurement and development of mental toughness. From these efforts, a plethora of attributes has been generated by sportspeople to characterise mental toughness (see Table 1 above).…”