How does winning and losing in youth sports affect kids' perceptions of their coaches?
Is Winning Everything? The Relative Contributions of Motivational Climate and Won-Lost Percentage in Youth Sports. Sean P. Cumming, Frank L. Smoll, Ronald E. Smith, and Joel R. Grossbard. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19 (3) 2007.
A study involving "268 male and female youth basketball players, aged 10 to 15 years" examined how coaching styles and winning-percentage influence the way young athletes feel about their athletic experiences and their coaches. Athletes with coaches who stressed learning, self-improvement, task-mastery and effort had positive evaluations of their coaches and athletic experiences. Athletes with coaches who emphasized wins and losses, and who encouraged behavior with that goal in mind, had slightly more negative evaluations of their experiences. While "winning did not relate to enjoyment," won-lost percentage did have a impact on athletes' estimation "of the coach's teaching ability and knowledge of the sport." The authors concluded that it was important for youth sport coaches to recognize that "athletes' enjoyment of the sport experience and evaluations of coaches are more closely tied to the motivational climate that they create than to their won-loss records."
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