Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Craig A. Wrisberg

Abstract

Recent research indicates that coaches consider "coachability'' to be an important predictor of athletic success (Giacobbi, Whitney, Roper, & Butryn, 1999; Kuchenbecker, 1999). The results of these studies also show that coaches regularly use the term "coachability'' to describe the personalities of particular athletes. In the sport psychology literature, coachability was first discussed by Ogilivie and Tutko (1969) who asserted that " ... coachability is one of the most essential qualities for truly great athletic effort. Those men who are labeled great pros, with rare exceptions, remain highly coachable men" (p. 26). Since that time, little research attention has been given to the systematic examination of the "coachability'' construct in sport. Researchers appear to have little idea of what behaviors are associated with coachability or whether this construct can predict sport performance. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to develop a measure of "coachability'' and to assess its psychometric properties. Consistent with the recommendations of Strean (1998), scale items were developed from qualitative interviews with coaches (Giacobbi et. al., 1999) and athletes (Giacobbi, Haley, & Whitney, 1998). In study one, a 44-item scale was developed (The Athletic Coachability Scale) which was administered to 170 college athletes representing a variety of sports. The results of principal components factor analysis with a varimax rotation produced a five-component solution accounting for 43% of the response variance. These factors were labeled "intensity of effort" (11 items), "trust/respect for the coach" (7 items), "openness to learning" (4 items), "coping with criticism" (3 items), and ''working with teammates" (2 items). All sub scale alpha reliability coefficients exceeded the . 70 criterion advocated by Nunnally (1978). In study two, the revised 30-item Athletic Coachability Scale (ACS) and the Task and Ego Orientation Scale for Sport {TEOSQ; Duda and Nicholls, 1992) was administered to 120 athletes. Principal components factor analysis with a varimax rotation produced a six-component solution accounting for 59% of the response variance. These components were labeled "intensity of effort" (5 items), "reactions to coaching feedback" ( 4 items), "openness to learning" (3 items), ''trust/respect for the coach" (4 items), "coping with criticism" (4 items), "and working with teammates" ( 4 items). Correlational analyses between the emergent ACS subscale scores and the subscales scores of the TEOSQ (task and ego orientation) revealed significant positive relationships between a task orientation and the intensity of effort (rho=.377), reactions to coaching feedback (rho=.453), trust/respect for the coach (rho=.277), working with teammates (rho=.378), and total ACS score (rho=.458). It was concluded that the initial evidence from the two studies support-a six-component conceptualization of the coachability construct. However, future research should include efforts to address issues of social-desirability, the creation of a coach rating form, and performance assessments.

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