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The relationship is conceptualized by perceptions of its three components: closeness, commitment, and complementarity.
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Victoria McGee
An undergraduate thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for undergraduate honors in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Chapel Hill 2016
Approved by: J. D. DeFreese
Joseph B. Myers
Brian G. Pietrosimone
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Victoria McGee: The Coach-Athlete Relationship and Athlete Psychological Outcomes (Under the direction of Dr. J.D. DeFreese) Athletes’ relationships with their coaches have important implications for outcomes of psychological health. Further examination of these associations is needed to identify the aspects of the coach-athlete relationship most linked to athlete burnout and engagement. This study examined associations among athlete perceptions of the coach-athlete relationship and burnout and engagement across a competitive season. We hypothesized that athlete endorsement of higher levels of markers of the coach-athlete relationship (closeness, commitment, and complementarity) would be negatively associated with perceptions of burnout and positively associated with perceptions of engagement. Participants were female collegiate rowers (N=37; Mage=19.3 years, SD=1.18) who completed online self-report assessments of study variables across four seasonal survey waves. Multilevel linear modeling analyses revealed closeness, one of the coach-athlete relationship markers, to be a significant predictor of seasonal global burnout and engagement. Study findings inform the design of interventions to promote engagement and deter burnout via improving coach-athlete closeness perceptions.
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Additionally, research investigations of these outcomes (e.g. burnout, engagement) will further inform practice efforts to promote athlete well-being in women’s rowing via positive experiences in the social sport environment. Accordingly, the coach- athlete relationship may be particularly important to understanding this because of the impact coaching practices can have on rowers’ continuation in the sport (Coon, 2015). The coach-athlete relationship (CAR) is described as the situation in which coaches’ and athletes’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are mutually and causally interconnected (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004). Specifically, this relationship is conceptualized to be reflected by perceptions of its three components of closeness, commitment, and complementarity, which are representative of the affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects, respectively, of interactions between coaches and athletes. Closeness is defined as how the coach and athlete feel emotionally close to each other in the relationship. Commitment refers to individuals’ intentions to maintain their coach-athlete relationship over time. Complementarity reflects the extent that coaches and athletes work co-operatively. Higher levels of these three components are associated with a stronger, more adaptive coach-athlete relationship. Relationships perceived as close and significant, as coach-athlete relationships often are, affect one’s views about oneself. Indeed, the coach-athlete relationship has been shown to be positively associated with fulfillment of psychological needs, therefore impacting the motivational processes and subsequent psychological outcomes, as described by self-determination theory
(SDT) (Riley & Smith, 2011; Hodge, Lonsdale, Jackson, 2009). Self-determination theory, a prominent theory of sport motivation and psychological health, proposes that social factors within an environment influence an individual’s level of satisfaction of the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. It has been found that satisfaction of these needs positively correlates with higher endorsement of positive aspects of the coach-athlete relationship levels by athletes (Riley & Smith, 2011). Needs satisfaction has also been positively associated with athlete engagement, which is a positive psychological outcome, and negatively associated with burnout, a negative psychological outcome (Hodge, Lonsdale, Jackson, 2009). Therefore, guided by this theory, the coach, a key actor in the social environment of the athlete, has great potential to impact the athletes’ psychological outcomes, including experience of athlete burnout or engagement. Motivation is a key antecedent of burnout, and SDT, a prominent motivational theory, is one way to understand both psychological experiences (Li et al, 2013; Goodger et al, 2007). Intrinsic motivation has been deemed a more positive motivational trend, while extrinsic motivation leads to maladaptive outcomes such as athlete burnout (Pelletier et al, 1995). Based on the motivation continuum formed as a part of the SDT, athletes with more intrinsic motivation, as it is the most self-determined form of motivation, were more likely to freely experience and self- endorse an activity, therefore leading to lower levels of athlete burnout than athletes experiencing more extrinsic motivation (Lemyre, Treasure, Roberts, 2006). Athlete engagement may be developed via an alternative motivational pathway characterized by more intrinsic or self-determined forms of motivation. Ultimately,
Enthusiasm is described as excitement and enjoyment. Global athlete engagement has been linked to lower levels of burnout (DeFreese & Smith, 2014). Athlete burnout and engagement are two distinct, yet related constructs; athlete engagement is important to look at because it is the more positive, adaptive athlete psychological health outcome. Therefore, coaches should look to promote athlete engagement as a way to improve the overall health and wellbeing of athletes as opposed to only identifying burnout in their athletes. After a review of the current literature, a clear limitation is a lack of studies that look at the impact of the coach-athlete relationship on athlete psychological outcomes over the course of an entire season. Furthermore, minimal studies have been conducted with populations of collegiate female rowing teams, which have been shown to have a high attrition rate (Coon, 2015), making the psychological outcomes of burnout and engagement particularly salient. To address these important knowledge gaps, the purpose of the following study was to examine the association of athlete perceptions of the coach-athlete relationship (closeness, commitment, and complementarity) with athlete burnout and engagement in a sample of collegiate female rowers over the course of a competitive season. We hypothesized that A) Athlete endorsement of higher levels of markers of the coach-athlete relationship (i.e. closeness, commitment, complementarity) would be negatively associated with athlete burnout perceptions across the competitive season.
B) Athlete endorsement of higher levels of the markers of the coach-athlete relationship would be positively associated with athlete engagement perceptions across the competitive season. Based on current evidence and theory, it is also important to account for sport motivation and psychological stress as important burnout and engagement antecedents in order to examine relationships among focal study variables in the context of key covariates. To further explore the relative importance of coach- athlete relationship variables within the context of common burnout and engagement antecedents, additional, exploratory study hypotheses included A) Athlete endorsement of higher levels of markers of the coach-athlete relationship (i.e. closeness, commitment, complementarity) would be negatively associated with athlete burnout perceptions across the competitive season. B) Athlete endorsement of higher levels of the markers of the coach-athlete relationship would be positively associated with athlete engagement perceptions across the competitive season.
while coaching behaviors also impact the athlete in a variety of ways (Mageau & Vallerand, 2003). In a review of the literature, Mageau and Vallerand (2003) stated that interactions and feedback between coaches and athletes impact the attitudes and behaviors of the coaches as well as the motivation, behavioral and psychological outcomes of the athletes. For example, coaches’ behaviors in the form of autonomy supportive behaviors have a beneficial impact on the psychological needs of the athletes and in turn nurture the intrinsic and self-determined extrinsic motivation of those athletes. Riley and Smith (2011) also found that the nature of the coach- athlete relationship impacts the fulfillment of psychological needs and that social relationships in general impact the motivational process. Smith and Smoll (2014) describe the process of how an athlete’s perception and recall of coaching behaviors impacts that athlete’s evaluation of his/her sport experiences. Moreover, athletes’ perceptions of greater training and instruction, social support, and positive feedback, areas guided by coaches, were associated with more positive outcomes (perceived competence and enjoyment) and fewer negative outcomes (burnout) (Price & Weiss, 2000). Accordingly, coaches’ behaviors have been shown to have great potential to impact the behavioral and psychological outcomes of their athletes. Coaching behaviors are often grouped into one of two coach-created motivational climates: the mastery climate and the performance climate. The coach- promoted mastery climate, which reinforces effort and learning from athletes, positively corresponds with higher levels of confidence, dedication, enthusiasm, and vigor (all aspects of athlete engagement) in athletes (Curran, Hill, Hall, Jowett,
2015). Research has also found that higher levels of closeness, commitment, and complementarity (in the coach-athlete relationship) exist when the coach emphasizes role importance, cooperation, and improvement (Olympiou, Jowett, and Duda, 2008). Role importance, cooperation, and improvement are characteristic of task involving features of the coach-created environment as opposed to the ego involving features such as punitive responses to mistakes, rivalry, and unequal recognition. These features of the coach-created environment stem from the achievement goal theory which proposes that task oriented goals are adaptive and empowering while ego goals are maladaptive and compromising (Nicholls, 1984). Self-Determination Theory Self-determination theory is a theory of motivation that posits that psychological outcomes are influenced by the nature of one’s motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Motivation runs along a continuum of self-determined motivation. The more self-determined the athlete’s motivation for sport, the more adaptive it is in persisting in the face of struggle/failure and the more adaptive it is for athlete psychological health (e.g., promotion of engagement and deterrence of burnout). SDT further states that motivation is influenced by three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is the feeling of personal choice or control, competence is a sense of success and being effective in one’s environment, and relatedness is the social connection to others reflected by feelings of acceptance and belonging. The social environment determines the extent to which these three psychological needs can be either fulfilled or thwarted. In the current study, SDT is utilized to guide our examination of the connection between
build off this research by exploring the link between the coach-athlete relationship and specific athlete psychological health outcomes of burnout and engagement. The most self-determined form of motivation is intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The most non self-determined form of motivation is amotivation, a state characterized by unwillingness and a lack of recognition that one’s actions have an effect on the outcomes. Extrinsic motivation lies along the motivation continuum, with some categories characterized by more self-determined forms of motivation than others. Intrinsic motivation has been deemed a more positive motivational trend, in which athletes participate in activities for their own sake (i.e., enjoyment, learning, mastery) inherently promoting competence and self-determination, leading to engagement with that activity. On the other side, extrinsic motivation leads to maladaptive outcomes such as athlete burnout; the athlete experiences a loss of competence and self-determination during some activity, resulting in an overall decrease in intrinsic motivation and identification and an increase in amotivation and external regulation (Pelletier et al, 1995). The degree to which motivation is more or less self-determined for sport, then, is asserted to impact athlete motivational, psychological (burnout, engagement) and behavioral (i.e., attrition/dropout) outcomes. Coon’s 2015 study, “Predicting College Women Rowers’ Motivation and Persistence: A Self-Determination Theory Approach”, examined individual and social-contextual factors that contributed to collegiate female rowers’ motivation and continued participation (or dropout) from sport. Coon measured basic needs
satisfaction, motivation for rowing, and perceptions of coaches’ behaviors. Athletes participated in the surveys at two different time points in order to assess the variables both at the end of the previous season and the start of the new season. This also allowed Coon to measure how many athletes “persisted” or dropped out from the sport between the two time survey periods. Coon found that true novices had less perceived competence as compared to their peers, and athletes working directly with their head coach felt more competent and autonomous than athletes working with a secondary coach. Autonomy and coach relatedness were positively correlated with intrinsic motivation and negatively related to athletes’ amotivation. Amotivation at Time 1 predicted rower dropout at Time 2, while participants continuing in their sport felt similar needs satisfaction and motivation at the two times. These findings support previous research utilizing SDT in sport (specifically collegiate rowing) by showcasing that satisfaction of athlete’s basic needs and self- determined forms of motivation predict persistence in sport, while amotivation (neither intrinsic or extrinsic motivation) predicts dropout, specifically in the collegiate women’s rowing environment. The current study was reviewed because of its seminal investigation of motivation and behavior within collegiate rowing as well as its use of SDT to guide such work. Informed by this seminal study, future work in this area should examine how different aspects of the rower’s environment impact motivation and the subsequent impact that has on psychological health outcomes including athlete burnout and engagement. The current study attempts to fill this research gap via a focus on the impact of the coach-athlete relationship.
motivation is the most self-determined form of motivation and athletes experiencing this engage in sport for pleasure and satisfaction of the activity (Pelletier et al., 1995). SDT assumes that amotivation may lead to dropout or burnout. In a study of female collegiate rowers, amotivation at time point one predicted dropout at time point two (Coon, 2015). Another assumption provided by SDT is that the coach and his/her behaviors contribute to the social environment of the athlete. Therefore, coaching behaviors have a direct impact on the athlete’s fulfillment or thwarting of the basic psychological needs. Coon (2015) found that in a longitudinal study of female collegiate rowers, autonomy and coach relatedness were positively related to intrinsic motivation (more self-determined). Athlete stress has been conceptualized as a key burnout antecedent. According to Smith (1986), burnout is a maladaptive stress response that results from the athlete’s perceived resources being inadequate to meet sport demands. A systematic literature review on burnout found perceived stress to be consistently and positively is associated with burnout perceptions (Goodger et al, 2007). Athletes have identified potential sources of stress as high training and competitive demands (Gould et al, 1997). Athletes also often describe interactions with peers and coaches as negative more often than positive when dealing with burnout and stress, particularly when that stress was related to an injury that prevented them from practicing and competing. Udry et al. (1997) found that coaches’ own emotional depletion prevented them from having positive social interactions with athletes during the stressor and hindered clear communication between the coach and athlete. Further, Price and Weiss (2000) found that coaches with higher
emotional exhaustion provide less positive feedback; coaches’ autocratic styles result in negative psychological responses from athletes that are precursors to burnout. These include higher stress, anxiety, and self-criticism. This relates to the fundamental psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence in that low autonomy results in higher stress, anxiety, and self-criticism, which increases an athlete’s susceptibility to burnout (Lemyre et al., 2006). In addition, research supports a positive association between negative sport-based social interactions and burnout (Smith et al, 2010). For example, DeFreese and Smith (2014) found that social support and negative social interactions over the course of a competitive season contributed to burnout and psychological wellbeing for collegiate athletes. Specifically, social support was negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with well-being while negative social interactions were positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with well-being. This study included multiple sources of social interactions, including coaches. Based on these findings, future work should focus of the impact of athlete perceptions of coaches on burnout as other psychological outcomes including engagement. Athlete Engagement Athlete engagement is the persistent, positive, cognitive-affective experience in sport that is characterized by vigor, confidence, dedication, and enthusiasm (Hodge, Lonsdale, Jackson, 2009). Vigor is a sense of liveliness. Confidence is a belief in one’s own ability to achieve a high level of performance and success in respect to one’s goals. Dedication is a desire to invest in one’s goals. Enthusiasm is described as excitement and enjoyment. Hodge, Lonsdale, and Jackson (2009) also found that
