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The purpose of this study was to gain a thorough understanding of the high school sport captaincy experience. Thirteen university freshmen (7 males, 6 females) who were high school sport captains the previous year participated in 60—90 min semistructured interviews. Hierarchical content analysis of the data revealed that the majority of participants believed that their captainship experience was positive, but also cited difficult aspects such as having responsibility/being held accountable, being scrutinized/meeting expectations, and staying neutral in conflict situations. The majority of captains also reported receiving little to no training from coaches for their captaincy role and indicated that they learned to lead largely from previous life experiences, such as by observing significant others and learning through trial and error. Results on perceived roles and duties, perceived effectiveness, attitudes toward formal leadership training, and recommendations for future captains are also provided. Implications for designing youth sport leadership development interventions and advancing research on youth leadership are discussed.

A formative evaluation was conducted of the Chemical Health Education and Coaching (CHEC) program sponsored by the Youth Sports Institute at Michigan State University. The degree to which high school athletic coaches (a) became knowledgeable about chemical health and (b) were confident in their ability to apply that knowledge to their team were the two primary concerns of this study. Two hundred eighteen high school athletic coaches comprised the experimental and control groups to whom identical pretest and posttest instruments were administered. The CHEC program consisted of three 1-hr sessions. The subjects were asked to respond to one questionnaire that assessed both their knowledge and confidence in that knowledge and their ability to use it with their athletes. The results indicated that the coaches who were exposed to CHEC were more knowledgeable and more confident than control coaches.

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the perceptions of coaches regarding the process of goal setting using a qualitative methodology. Participants were eight male and six female high school coaches from Midwest United States representing both team and individual sports. Results revealed that coaches employed goal setting extensively for both individual and team goals in practice and competition. In addition, many interesting findings emerged including (a) coaches tended to set both long- and short-term goals; (b) coaches only inconsistently wrote down their goals; (c) goals were both dictated by coaches and set in collaboration with players; (d) the primary function of goals was to provide direction and focus; and (e) physical, psychological, and external barriers impeded goal attainment. These findings are discussed in relation to the current empirical/theoretical goal-setting literature and suggestions for best practice by sport psychology researchers are offered.

Seventy-three college female and 84 high school female cheerleaders participated in the current study on eating disorders and pressures within cheerleading. The participants completed the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), the Social Physique Anxiety Scale (SPAS), and CHEER, a measure developed by the authors to identify pressures within cheerleading. A one-way MANOVA indicated significant differences between high school and college cheerleaders on CHEER and SPAS. Correlational analyses revealed a strong relation between SPAS, body dissatisfaction scores, and eating behavior, suggesting that body image is an important predictor for eating disorders in cheerleaders. Moreover, although high school cheerleaders reported fewer pressures than their college counterparts, they exhibited greater body dissatisfaction and disordered eating patterns.

In sport psychology, there is a need for ethnic and gender attribution research (Allison, 1988; Duda & Allison, 1989, 1990; Gill, 1993). This study examined effects of (a) ethnicity (African American, Anglo, Hispanic, Native American); (b) gender; and (c) years of track experience on causal attributional dimensions (locus of causality, stability, controllability). The 755 track athletes (ages 13—18) in this study were chosen from 32 randomly selected high schools. Two 3-way MANOVAs were used to analyze data for success and failure. Results indicated that gender and experience had no significant effects on attributional dimensions. Athletes classified causality toward internal, controllable, and unstable ends of the Causal Dimension Scale. Success, however, was perceived to be more internal, controllable, and stable than failure. Significant ethnic differences were identified. Anglos perceived success as more internal and controllable than did either African Americans or Native Americans. Anglos perceived failure as more controllable than African Americans did. Anglos perceived failure as more internal and controllable, but less stable than Native Americans did.

The majority of research on children’s peer aggression has focused exclusively on the school context. Very few studies have investigated peer aggression in sports clubs. The prevalence and stability of peer aggression, prosocial behavior, and resource control strategies for children participating in three types of sports (martial arts, contact, and noncontact sports) were examined in two contexts: the sports club and the elementary school. We distinguished aggressive children with (i.e., Machiavellians) and without prosocial tendencies (i.e., coercive-aggressive children). Self-reports about experiences in the two contexts where gathered from 1,425 Dutch elementary school students (717 boys and 708 girls, fourth to sixth grade, mean age 11.25 years) who were participating in a sports club. We found roles for resource control strategies to be rather stable across contexts. The findings did not provide support for the “enhancement” assumption in these contexts with regard to martial arts participants.

Previous research has demonstrated the relationship between high cohesion and optimal team performance. This study investigated the cohesion-individual performance relationship and examined expended effort as a mediator of that relationship. At the middle and end of the regular season, 41 male and 49 female varsity high school basketball players representing eight teams completed measures of group cohesion and perceived expended effort. At the same time intervals, the players’ game statistics were gathered, and coaches completed the expended effort questions regarding their players. Results partially supported the predictive ability of cohesion on objective individual performance and expended effort was a mediator of the cohesion-individual performance relationship at the end of the season. Results are discussed regarding theoretical and measurement issues. Practical implications for coaches and consultants are also provided.

Based on Carron’s (1982) conceptual system of cohesion and Chelladurai and Carron’s (1978) multidimensional model of sport leadership, this study examined the relationship between perceived coaching behaviors and group cohesion in high school football teams. Players (N=163) assessed their coach’s leadership style and behaviors using the Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980), and the cohesion of their team using the Group Environment Questionnaire (Widmeyer, Brawley, & Carron, 1985). Multivariate multiple regression and canonical analyses revealed a significant relationship between coaching behaviors and group cohesion. Coaches who were perceived as engaging in higher levels of social support, training and instruction, positive feedback, and a democratic style were associated with higher levels of task cohesion within their teams. A series of subanalyses revealed that perceptions of team and individual success, as well as starter/nonstarter playing status, were also related to perceptions of coaching behaviors and/or team cohesion, while offensive and defensive positions were not related to these constructs.

Adolescent athletes can use psychological skills immediately after being taught, but a dearth of empirical evidence exists regarding whether these skills are maintained over time. A 12-week curriculum (i.e., UNIFORM; Gilbert, 2011) was taught to a high school varsity soccer team with three data collection points: pretest, posttest, 4-week follow-up. Use of several skills was significantly greater posttest compared with pretest as measured by the Test of Performance Strategies (Thomas, Murphy, & Hardy, 1999). Follow-up results were also salient. Relaxation, imagery, and self-talk use in practice was significantly greater than pretest at follow-up; relaxation, imagery, goal setting, and self-talk in competition showed similar results. Descriptive statistics and qualitative data triangulate these results. The UNIFORM curriculum enabled the athletes to use the skills more consistently. This study makes a contribution by measuring the skills at follow-up and providing evidence of their continued use four weeks after the curriculum’s conclusion.