The effectiveness of an autocratic coaching style on basketball performance of female tertiary students in Singapore

In recent years, surveys such as those of the Singapore Sports Council in 2011 have shown that the basketball scene of Singapore tertiary females does not has as high a participation rate and competitive level as that of the men’s scene. Hence this study aimed to explore the effect of an autocratic coaching style on basketball performance of 6 tertiary females of the intermediate level in Singapore. With an increase in performance, individuals’ intrinsic motivation would also increase through successful experiences (Weinberg & Gould, 2003), thus increasing participation rate and competitiveness of the scene. The hypothesis is that an autocratic coaching style would increase the basketball performance of tertiary female players of the intermediate level in Singapore. Quantitative date was being collected using a repeated measures time series design. 6 basketball training over 3 weeks were conducted with an autocratic coaching style. Each of their Performance Index Rating (PIR) was recorded during the FIBA 3-versus-3 Gameplay of every training. Over 6 trainings, the PIR of 4 participants generally increased, 1 participant’s PIR generally decreased, 1 participant’s PIR fluctuated before stabilizing to almost the same PIR of her 1st session. Thus, the data trend concluded that an autocratic coaching style in most circumstances increases the basketball performance of tertiary females of the intermediate level. Though with 2 of the 6 participants not affected positively, coaching styles adopted should be tailored per the context and learning styles of different players to achieve better performance.Bachelor of Science (Sport Science and Management