Autonomy-Supportive Pedagogical Approach to Sports Coaching: Research, Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

There has been an increasing body of research on autonomy- or need-support specific to a coaching context that warrants some review of what we know and don't know, and what might be generative for future research. The previous studies reviewed within this article have shown consistent support for Self-determination theory with autonomy-supportive environments linked with adaptive outcomes, such as superior performance, enhanced self-worth, increased effort, and self-determined motivation; while controlling environments have been linked with increased attrition and extrinsic motivation or amotivation. In this way, much of the research in autonomy-supportive coaching has focused on the impact of coaching behaviours on athlete outcomes. While this is an important focus of inquiry, there has been a dearth of research examining those causal factors that impact coaches' pedagogical behaviours in the first case. This review underscores the need for future research to examine the antecedents to coaching behaviours, which is central to understanding the complexity and challenges in promoting an autonomy-supportive approach to sport coaching.

Coach-Created Talent Development Motivational Climate in Canoe Slalom in the United Kingdom

“…This analysis demonstrated common practices amongst the coaches that were not only consistent with TDE research (Henriksen, et al, 2011;Martindale et al, 2007;Mills et al, 2012), research of successful high performance coaches (Lara-Bercial & Mallett, 2016) but also consistent with motivationally adaptive climates. The coaches all created a more empowering and less disempowering climate, which is consistent with the International Sport Coaching Framework (ICCE, 2013), findings from Smith et al's (2016) large scale study of youth sport coaches, and associated with motivationally adaptive outcomes for participants (e.g., Gilchrist & Mallett, 2017;Harwood, et al, 2015;Occhino et al, 2014). In addition, respondents in the current study indicated that coaches exhibited transformational leadership behaviours which have also been associated with desired outcomes for participants (e.g., Callow et al, 2009).…”

“…Two theories have been prominent in conceptualizing the motivational climate, achievement goal theory (AGT) (Nicholls, 1989) and self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000) (for reviews see Gilchrist & Mallett, 2017;Harwood, Keegan, Smith, & Raine, 2015;Occhino, Mallett, Rynne, & Carlisle, 2014). AGT focuses on how ability is understood in a given context.…”

“…Research from AGT and SDT perspectives separately, and the integrated perspective, generally demonstrates that the empowering dimensions are associated with desirable outcomes for participants such as superior performance, positive perceptions of competence and self-worth, self-determined motivation, adaptive practice and competition strategies, and positive affective states. In contrast, disempowering dimensions are associated with more motivationally maladaptive outcomes for participants such as attrition, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, maladaptive strategies, negative affect, and feelings of lower positive affect and autonomy (for reviews see Gilchrist & Mallett, 2017;Harwood, Keegan, Smith, & Raine, 2015;Occhino, Mallett, Rynne, & Carlisle, 2014). Research has typically employed large scale, self-report questionnaire-based methods with youth sport participants or tertiary education participant and more recently systematic observation in youth sports (e.g., Smith et al, 2016).…”

Youth Sport Coaches’ Well-Being Across the Season: The Psychological Costs and Benefits of Giving Empowering and Disempowering Sports Coaching to Athletes

“…Also, there is a need to increase awareness about the complexity, and number of challenges, in promoting an empowering style of sports coaching in the real-world of youth sport (e.g., Denison, Mills, & Konoval, 2017;Kidman, 2001;Occhino, Mallett, Rynne, & Carlisle, 2014;Solstad et al, 2017). Over the past few years, only a small number of studies have actually highlighted that a behavioral shift to becoming an empowering sports coach is related to aspects, such as youth sport coaches' levels of self-awareness (Smith, 2014), sports coaching's disciplinary legacy (Denison et al, 2017), the contrasts between the content of CDPs and the realities of everyday coaching practices (Stodter & Cushion, 2014), the individual-based nature of current CDPs , and the lack of research examining the challenges of shifting from one style of sports coaching to another (Occhino et al, 2014).…”

“…Over the past few years, only a small number of studies have actually highlighted that a behavioral shift to becoming an empowering sports coach is related to aspects, such as youth sport coaches' levels of self-awareness (Smith, 2014), sports coaching's disciplinary legacy (Denison et al, 2017), the contrasts between the content of CDPs and the realities of everyday coaching practices (Stodter & Cushion, 2014), the individual-based nature of current CDPs , and the lack of research examining the challenges of shifting from one style of sports coaching to another (Occhino et al, 2014). Conversely, the majority of studies in the field of sport psychology have only reported the benefits of an empowering style of sports coaching, without acknowledging the difficult aspects related to coach education pedagogy and, ultimately, behavioral change (e.g., Duda, 2013;Duda & Appleton, 2016).…”