Coaching Behaviour

Summary

The focus of this assignment is on the coaching behaviour exhibited by a participation coach in charge of a junior level hockey side. The age, fitness and motivation of the children are looked at as well as the level that they are currently participating at. Also the ways in which the coach tries to make sure that only 'desired' behaviours are exhibited by the players. A look at how feedback enables a coach to transfer behaviour to the tem will be made as feedback is a major part of a coach's behaviour. The different styles of feedback available to the coach to use are looked at - and vitally which styles of feedback are more acceptable in terms of development. Other behaviours such as motivation is also covered in this assignment, in terms of the theory behind each one and a definition of the different forms they can take. The way that they can affect the junior hockey team's development and participation is also looked at by this assignment.

The different psychological aspects covered in this assignment will then be used in a discussion to determine how good the coach is in developing the players in the squad.

1.0 Introduction

It is very important to realise when involved with coaching children that they are very different from adults both physiologically and emotionally. For instance, children are more likely to participate in the sport for the intrinsic rewards such as enjoyment of the game or the fun of the social aspect of it, while adults tend to play sport for extrinsic rewards such as money and trophies. When coaches try to transfer their behaviour onto the young athletes by promoting extrinsic rewards above the 'fun' aspect of sport it can lead to problems and reduce the number of people willing to play because you are removing their initial attraction to sport. This is supported by Kenyon and Mcpherson (1973), who suggested that coaches (as role models) have the power to affect the moral, sociological and physiological well being of young athletes.

It logically follows that if a child is not enjoying sport then they will drop-out of sport (Brown, 1985; Gould, 1987; Burton, 1988), a plausible reason for the renowned drop-out rate during the teenage years of life that frequently occurs in athletes is the relationship between a coach and player not being satisfactory to both parties e.g. the player feels that the coach is not treating them fairly and so drops out of sport.

A study by Harter (1978) found that players enjoying sport through positive feedback increase in physical competence at the performed skill. This in turn can then motivate the player to develop further in sport (negating the drop-out in teenage years) and also impact upon the players learning (Roberts et al, 1981). A coach's behaviour around children is therefore paramount in enabling the child to not only have fun in sport but to succeed as well - it is also important in transferring both good ethical and sociological values to the players that are relevant both on and off the field of play (i.e. fair play and effort).

Much like the classical conditioning effect noted by Pavlov (nd), feedback plays a vital role in enabling the coach to transfer the required skills to the players and promote the desired behaviours by praise and remove undesired behaviours with criticism. As a result of this the athletes will be able to perform the technical skills of the sport accurately, and also enjoy themselves (Harter, 1978). The specific situation presented to the coach will determine the type of feedback that they use, as behaviour is a function of the environment and the person (Murray, 1938), which can also be related to the subject of personality in coaching.

2.0 Main Report

2.1 Junior Hockey Team

This paper is looking at a fifteen-man squad that are around eleven years old and so just below the average age that children cease to participate in sport. Also the children go to school together and live within three miles of each other - and this has lead to a high level of cohesion within the group. The player's main motivating factor for involvement in the team is enjoyment (Australian Sports Commission, 2000) and as such attribute success to high ability and effort, and attribute failure to bad luck. According to Attribution theory (Weiner, 1980) this is a common occurrence with high achievers. The coach's insistence on effort and hard work is partly the reason for their desire to achieve, with praise given to those who put effort in - however the major factor is their enjoyment of the sport which has not been diminished by their training sessions as they still enjoy playing hockey with their friends.

Due to the fact that the team is not in a hockey league at the moment, they play friendlies every Sunday morning against local sides instead - which can also mean that sometimes the children are playing against friends as well as with them. Because the players are around 11 means that a lot of them will still be relying heavily on their aerobic energy systems as opposed to their anaerobic systems, which has severe implications for training. The coach can easily remedy this however by including only a couple of anaerobic drills into the training, with the majority being aerobic in order to keep the children motivated and compensate for their age.

In an effort to maintain the player's motivation, the coach awards a man of the match award to the player that he feels has helped the team the best throughout the match. Also he awards a trophy for player of the month to the player who has tried the hardest in both training and matches. This also reinforces the coach's transference of effort as behaviour onto the children as praise and rewards are given to those who try the hardest. The coach does also notice that each player has a different ability and so grades the effort that they apply individually so as to make it fair.

2.2 Coaches Behaviour

This section is focussing on the way that the coach can interact with the players in his charge and so promote the desired behaviour from them. There are many different aspects to coach's behaviour, primarily the way that they act and speak around the athletes they are coaching. Because of the age of the junior hockey team the language that the coach will use will be very different to that they would use if coaching adults, e.g.,