Introduction

Coaching techniques can be perceived by athletes in an assortment of ways. This perception is influenced by an athlete's priorities regarding task-oriented and ego-oriented motivation in a beneficial or problematical way. Due to the possibly negative effects a coach can have on an athlete, specifically during an injury recovery period, assessing a coach’s perception on the importance of their own established motivational climate is vital. The motivational climate that a coach creates can either foster an environment that leads to the injured athlete feeling more motivated to do their rehab or have a positive outlook on their recovery process. The claim of this study was: if a specific aspect of motivational climate is proven to be lacking in a coaches perception, then their athletes are less likely to recover and return to the chosen sport post-injury. There have been numerous studies conducted on athletes and their perceptions regarding motivational climate surrounding an athlete's perception of their coaches’ technique. Although an athlete's perception is important, research psychologists have yet to study the importance of how a coach perceives their own training technique and how the athletes’ perception of the climate can affect their performance and overall outlook on the sport. 

 

Motivational climate is the psychological environment a coach creates by designing sessions which provide instructions and feedback that will help to motivate the athletes in training and competition. Motivational climate has several psycho-social aspects, although in this study, we will be focusing specifically on how important an athletic coach perceives his/her own coaching technique regarding goal setting, ego-oriented or task-oriented motivation, encouragement or criticism, and aspects of the self-determination theory. 

 

Goal setting has been proven to provide immense levels of motivation alongside a strong growth of self-confidence when the athlete achieves a set goal (Locke & Latham, 1985). Caution to an athlete's pre-performance anxiety has also been proven to be a vital characteristic to a genuinely good coach and his/her technique. The SAS-2 is a questionnaire given to athletes to produce on a scale how severe his/her pre-performance anxiety is.

 

Pre-performance anxiety can have a relentless impact on an athlete’s season and overall mental state. Numerous athletes reported increased levels of anxiety over the season (Smith et al., 2007). One common and encouraged way to prevent or limit pre-performance anxiety in athletes is to participate in pre-performance meditation. If coaches find pre-performance meditation important then they are likely to take caution to their athletes risk of developing anxiety prior to competition.

 

Ego-oriented and task-orientated motivation are also known as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Ego motivation is witnessed when an athlete's main motivation to continue participating is externally motivated. For example, an athlete may be extrinsically motivated when he/she is basing his/her success on doing better than their opponent. These ego-motivated athletes tend to quit the sport and not continue to a higher level. Alternatively, a task-motivated athlete is intrinsically motivated. These athletes participate in a sport because he/she loves doing it. Intrinsically motivated athletes tend to continue participating at a higher level. 

 

The Self-determination theory is a macro-theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. The self-determination theory is a considerably valuable interpretation and approach for analyzing psycho-social difficulties on athletes during the return to sport from injury (Dionigi & Podlong 2010), therefore, it is a strong and effective way to examine coaching techniques. Pre-performance anxiety can have a relentless impact on an athlete’s season and overall mental state. 

 

The overall goal of this study is to determine what variables (if any), regarding coaching technique, effect an athletes discontinuation a chosen sport. Furthermore, the goal expands to inform coaches of the results of this study so they can implement or remove any variable(s) of their coaching technique to create a more impeccable sporting experience for athletes dealing with injuries.

This research study and results are extremely important when analyzing coaching technique, specifically when dealing with previously injured athletes. Adolescents frequently discontinue sports alongside other activities due to their psychological health after an injury. Coaches can be an impact factor in this if we focus on helping athletes through perfecting coaching techniques. That starts by analyzing then altering a coaches perception when looking at their own coaching technique.