The Effect of a 6-Month Coach Educational Program on Strengthening Coach-Athlete Interpersonal Relationships in Individual Youth Sport

Abstract

The purpose of this intervention study was to develop an educational program for coaches to strengthen the coach–athlete interpersonal relationship in individual youth sport. To obtain data in the qualitative interpretative phenomenology phase, 10 youth sports coaches took part in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The educational program was developed by integrating psychological, educational and social skills into the educational coaching sessions. The program involved a detailed video analysis, theoretical classes, and individual consultations. The qualitative interpretative phenomenology research design was used and enabled to evaluate the program. The study results revealed that the program had a positive impact on the transformation of the coach–athlete interpersonal relationship in sport. Behavioural, emotional, cognitive, and social strategies changes occured. The quality of the coach–athlete relationship changed: trust, communication, cooperation, encouragement, and a connection between athletes and the coaches appeared. The study’s results showed that the educational program for coaches had a positive effect on the quality of interpersonal relationships between athletes and the coaches and increased positive coaching strategies in youth sport.

Positive youth development related athlete experiences and coach behaviors following a targeted coach education course

“…The key challenge of any intervention is to foster maintenance of change. 35 In the present study, longer term change was not achieved, despite the offering of one-on-one meetings with the coaches during the intervention. It is possible that once the coaches had completed the course and one-on-one meetings no longer occurred, they (consciously or not) returned to what they were most comfortable with and neglected the PYD material shared during the course.…”

“…In addition, we encourage future research to investigate ways or promoting long-term behavior change in coaches. The current intervention was not immune to only short-term behavior change, 35 suggesting that novel ways of developing coaches should be sought to solidify knowledge retention and translation. One additional way of investigating the influence of PYD-focused coach education courses is to consider intervention fidelity to determine to the degree to which the instructor delivered the material from the course.…”

Student Perceptions of Motor, Mental and Social Benefits and the Impact of Practicing Recreational Figure Skating

“…Examination of the field literature shows that there are a number of studies [35,36,37,38] carried out in this country and abroad that show parallels with the findings of this study. In this way, the study revealed the positive impact of different specific activities of physical education on the psychological and mental levels of students [39], on the social integration and relationships level of students [40,41,42] and on the physical fitness [19,43,44,45]. According to studies, approximately 54–57% of the total daily hours are used by adults for sedentary activities [46,47], and the prevalence of the same type of behavior is significantly higher for the student [48].…”

The Impact of Sports and Physical Activities on Assertiveness in University Students

“…This may be an advantage as it encourages the use of direct communication 22) . They also reported that these communication skills are enhanced due to team training 23) . The relationship with youth sports coaches can also be regarded as a potential factor that can enhance assertiveness.…”