The Relationship of Coach-Created Motivational Climate to Teamwork Behaviors in Female Collegiate Athletes

in The Sport Psychologist

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Derek M. Sokoloff Center for Sport Psychology and Athlete Mental Health, Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4880-1977 *
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Trent A. Petrie Center for Sport Psychology and Athlete Mental Health, Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-9229
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Tsz Lun (Alan) Chu Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, WI, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3464-1431
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2022-0070
Keywords:
achievement goal theory; teams; coaching; social environments
First Published Online:
10 Feb 2023
In Print:
Volume 37: Issue 1
Page Range:
40–47
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Although teamwork behaviors would be expected to emerge from coach-created task-involving climates, no study has focused on this connection. Thus, we surveyed female National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletes (N = 536) on their perceptions of motivational climates created by their head coaches (i.e., 33-item Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire) and their beliefs about their team’s teamwork behaviors (i.e., 19-item Multidimensional Assessment of Teamwork in Sport—Short Form). Cluster analyses revealed three groupings of coach-created climates: low task/high ego (n = 125), moderate task/moderate ego (n = 286), and high task/low ego (n = 125). Through a series of multivariate analyses of variance, with post hoc discriminant descriptive analysis, we found a significant main effect for the motivational climate clusters on teamwork behaviors. Athletes in the high-task/low-ego motivational climate cluster endorsed more teamwork behaviors (e.g., preparation, execution) than those in the moderate-task/moderate-ego and low-task/high-ego climate clusters. These findings suggest the importance of coach-created motivational climates in teamwork behaviors.

Supplementary Materials

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