An administrator's examination of the influence of coaching behaviors on the physical self-efficacy of high school athletes
Abstract
The effects of participation in co-curricular activities in American secondary schools has long been the subject of debate. Efforts to examine the effects of participation in co-curricular activities have reported correlations between participation and positive student outcomes, but the lack of an adequate conceptual design has prevented these efforts from adding solid evidence to the debate. The purpose of this study was to apply a conceptual model to the question of whether or not participation in co-curricular activities influences desired student outcomes. This study specifically examined whether behaviors of interscholastic track coaches that were linked with the development of self-efficacy perceptions, did in fact result in positive changes in participants' self-perceptions. The measure of student self-perceptions was operationalized as scores on the Physical Self-Efficacy Scale (Ryckman, Robbins, Thorton, & Cantrell, 1982). The coaching behaviors examined were goal-setting strategies and attributional feedback following successful and unsuccessful performance attempts. Participants' perceived performance attainments and strength of goal commitment were also predicted to influence perceived self-efficacy measures. A post hoc analysis also examined gender as a variable in the development of perceived physical self-efficacy during track participation. Data were collected from 18 separate track programs representing 13 public high schools in Bergen County, the northernmost county in New Jersey. Data for the independent variables were collected through survey questionnaires. The results of the Track Coaches Survey were used then to predict participants' Physical Self-Efficacy scores. The results suggest that coaches' goal setting is not related to self-efficacy perceptions, while attributional feedback has a mild influence. The results further indicate that perceived performance attainments and gender are a strong predictor of perceived physical self-efficacy, while strength of goal commitment was a mild predictor. The results of this study also suggest that more work needs to be done before the effects of participation in co-curricular activities are fully understood. It appears that the conceptual framework used in this study is an appropriate model for future investigations.
Subject Area
School administration|Secondary education|Physical education
Recommended Citation
Montesano, Charles Victor, "An administrator's examination of the influence of coaching behaviors on the physical self-efficacy of high school athletes" (1994). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9511224.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9511224
