Coach-athlete relationship and athletes’ motivation: moderating effects of individual and team sports

This study aims to understand the dynamics of coach-athlete relationship and motivation among university athletes in individual and team sports. Athletes participating in individual sports generally have greater opportunities to develop close athletic relationship with their coaches as compared to those participating in team sports (Salminen & Liukkonen, 1996). It is hypothesised that the type of sport (individual or team) has a moderating effect on coach-athlete relationship and motivation. Participants completed the 11-item Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q; Jowett & Cockerill, 2003) and the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS; Pelletier et. al, 1995) as part of the data collection process. Six participants were also randomly selected for a follow-up interview. Participants were 119 university athletes (45 males, 74 females), ages 19 to 30 years (M = 22.58, SD = 1.73) from individual (N = 59) and team sports (N = 60). The two participant groups were then compared in terms of commitment, closeness, and complementarity with their level of intrinsic motivation. Team sport athletes had a higher mean score on both CART-Q and SMS, indicating high levels of interdependency between coach and athlete in both types of sport. Although no significant moderating effects of sport type was found on the association between coach-athlete relationship and sport motivation in university athletes, this study reinforced motivational climate as a pivotal coaching variable that relates to athletes’ intrinsic motivation. This emphasises the importance of autonomy-supportive and task-involving coaching behaviours regardless of sport type.Bachelor of Science (Sport Science and Management