Peer- and Coach-Created Motivational Climates in Youth Sport: Implications for Positive Youth Development of Disadvantaged Girls

Abstract

The relationship between coach- and peer-created motivational climates and Positive Youth Development is largely unexplored. This is especially true for the latter and in particular with regard to disadvantaged girls. The present study was designed to examine the relationships between perceived coach- and peer-created climates and reported developmental gains among disadvantaged girls participating in sports programmes, and to determine whether these relationships were moderated by personal characteristics. Two hundred young women aged between 12 and 22 completed a questionnaire which included the ‘Youth Experience Survey for Sport’ (MacDonald, Côté, Eys, & Deakin, 2012), the ‘Motivational Climate Scale for Youth Sports’ (Smith, Cumming, & Smoll, 2008), the ‘Peer Motivational Climate in Youth Sport Questionnaire’ (Ntoumanis & Vazou, 2005), and questions regarding participants’ socio-economic characteristics. Multilevel regression analyses were performed to take into account the hierarchical data structure. The analysis revealed that a mastery-oriented coach climate is a very strong predictor of perceived Positive Youth Development. This is based on both the number of developmental domains on which it had a significant impact and the explained variance based on the PRV values of the multi-level models. Unlike previous research on disadvantaged youth in general and disadvantaged girls in particular, the observed interaction effects did not show that disadvantaged girls necessarily gain more from their involvement in organised activities such as sport.

‘Defnyddiwch y Gymraeg’1: community sport as a vehicle for encouraging the use of the Welsh language

“…The results of this study supports research conducted by Schaillée, Theeboom and Van Cauwenberg (2017) who reported that the behaviours and actions of significant others (i.e. family, peers, coaches) have an important influence on the social development of young people.…”

“…and Schaillée, Theeboom and Van Cauwenberg (2017) also reported that a coach's actions and behaviours influence the social and personal development of a young person.…”

Examining the relationship between sports participation and youth developmental outcomes for socially vulnerable youth

“…Even more so, a negative or unbalanced sports climate could harm individual players and potentially push youths further down the spiral of vulnerability [ 60 , 61 ]. To fully understand the relationship between sports participation and youth development, assessing the quality of the sports climate, and thus the quality of the developmental experiences for youths [ 62 ], is necessary.…”

Perceptions About Quality of Interpersonal Processes and Practice Activities in Youth Sport Are Interdependent

“…Youth sport environments characterized by a focus on performance and winning are often referred to in the literature as 'ego-involving' and have been linked with negative psychosocial and behavioural consequences (e.g., Duda & Balaguer, 2007;Newton et al, 2000;O'Rourke et al, 2013;Smith et al, 2008). Other studies in youth sport and physical education, however, have reported findings conflicting with the hypothesized link (e.g., Goudas & Biddle, 1994;Gould, Flett, & Lauer, 2012;Kipp & Weiss, 2015;Shaillée, Theeboom, & Van Cawenberg, 2017). At the same time, there is emergent evidence that complex environmental patterns, such as the one identified in this study, are associated with indicators of adaptive patterns of youth development in the family context (Gute, Gute, Nakamura, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2008), physical education (Goudas & Biddle, 1994) and youth sport (Authors, 2017;Horn, Byrd, Martin & Young, 2015).…”