Abstract
In competitive sport, the coach has been identified as an important social agent that can influence many factors including participation, motivation, and performance. Research has established that interpersonal styles (i.e. autonomy-support, involvement, and structure) provided by the coach can influence motivation through the fulfillment of the athletes’ basic psychological needs (Mageau & Vallerand, 2003). However, the majority of research focuses solely on autonomy-support. The purpose of our study was to examine how the perceptions of all three interpersonal coaching styles influence motives through the fulfillment of basic needs in competitive athletes. A total of 132 male (n=66) and female (n=66) competitive athletes completed three questionnaires: Interpersonal Supportiveness Scale-Coach (ISS-C; Wilson et al., 2009), English version of “L’échelle de Satisfaction des Besoins Fondamentaux en Context Sportif” (Gillet et al., 2010), and Behavioural Regulation in Sport Questionnaire (BRSQ; Lonsdale et al., 2008). Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the hypothetical model, and the following index scores were reported; χ2 (86) = 192.5, p<.05; CFI= .928; TLI=.912; RMSEA= .097 (90% CI=.079-116). The results demonstrated that interpersonal coaching styles significantly positively predicted the satisfaction of athlete’s basic needs. Athlete’s basic needs significantly positively predicted autonomous motives and significantly negatively predicted controlled motives. This study demonstrates that an athlete’s perception of a coach’s interpersonal style can influence the athlete’s motivation. In addition, the inclusion of all three interpersonal coaching styles allows for further examination of factors in the coach-athlete relationship that have received little empirical attention.
