AROUSAL AND BEHAVIOUR OF COACHES DURING COMPETITION BY

coaches during competition 11 This thesis investigated whether a relationship exists between the intra-competition psychological and psychophysiological arousal levels of basketball coaches and their behaviour during the match. The participants in Study 1 were four male basketball coaches, aged between 28 and 50 years, three who coached junior female teams and the other a senior women's team coach. The study examined the relationship between coaches ' behaviour and arousal level. Trait anxiety was measured at the commencement of the study, using the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT). State anxiety was measured prior to each match using the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). Heart rate of the coaches was measured at 5-second intervals for the duration of the three games for which each coach was studied, using the Polar 4000E heart rate telemetry system. At the same time, the behaviour of the coaches was videotaped during those matches, and their comments during the matches recorded via a remote microphone. Coach behaviour, as recorded on video-tape, was coded subsequent to the games using the Coaching Behaviour Assessment System (CBAS). Mean heart rate (HR) varied considerably between coaches and for the same coach in different games. These HR values represented widely varying percentages of the maximums estimated by the age-adjusted method. Using the CBAS, coding revealed large differences in the number of coaching behaviours exhibited per game both between coaches and for the same coach in different games. The majority of observed behaviours came from only seven of the 12 CBAS categories, with three coaches showed specific technical instruction (TIS) as their most frequent behaviour, and the other coach shoving verbal punishment (VP) as their most frequent behaviour. An ANOVA indicated that there was a significant difference between the frequencies of use of different categories of behaviour, F(6,18