Keywords

1 Introduction

This study is to justify the preferred coaching behaviors of Malaysian youth athletes. This study revisited the preferred coaching behaviors between different gender and different sports. The demographic factors included the genders, type of sport, and the past experience of the Malaysian youth athletes.

Coaches’ behaviors are very important factors in a team or individual in order to achieve success because coach’s behaviors providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating their athletes especially youth group that could profoundly impact on the team to create a strong and effective team. Coaches behavioral must align the team which, behind the ideas and obtain the group’s wholehearted commitment to the overall plan.

Out of the Multidimensional Model of Leadership, Chelladurai and Saleh [3] developed coach’s Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) in which they administered items drawn from scales to physical education and university athletes in various sports. From these items, they then developed five dimensions of coaches’ behavioral which was in the dimension of training and instruction being highlighted in this study.

Problems arise with many coaches’ behaviors which were talented and skillful in respective sports. Success in the certain sport still depends on both sides which mean the coach and the athlete as well. Coaches’ behaviors have an impact on how effectively an organization reaches its objectives.

According to Terry and Howe [4], both the performance and preferred of an athlete can be either enhanced or diminished by the effects of the personality and coaches’ behaviors of the teams. Furthermore, athletes come with a very different background of life, social, individual and family values. The exposures toward coaching behaviors are different. Hence, every athlete has a different attitude towards their own coaches’ behavior and different perception of increasing on their confidence level. By identifying the preferred coaching behavior, the problem between athletes and coach will be fixed.

This present study divided its objectives into several domains: To identify the coaching behaviors preferred by Malaysian KARISMA athletes; To compare preferred coaching behaviors between different genders; To compare the preferred coaching behaviors between different sports involved Malaysian youth athletes. Hence, it has been hypothesized into two hypotheses: Ho1—there is no significant differences in mean score between preference on coaches’ behaviors between gender and Ho2—there is no significant differences between athletes preference coaches behaviors between various sports.

As a clarification, Malaysian youth athletes mean student-athletes in any universities campuses who participated in KARISMA 2015 tournament. Operationally, there were 352 athletes which consisted of 184 of males and 168 females youth athletes. Where else, the coach is any man or woman, paid or unpaid, who carries the responsibility for instructing and directing a sports team.

Coaches’ behaviors involved the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal setting and goal achievement. According to Hemphill and Coons [5], leadership as the behavior of an individual when he is directing the activities of a group towards a shared goal. Coach performs two functions. First, the leader performs the relationship function, which includes the feelings, attitudes, and satisfaction of the members of the group and fulfilling an emotional role for the subordinates. Second, leaders are concerned about the task function. The coach must guide the group in the direction of goal attainment, which is one of the primary roles of the influence process [6].

The type of sports athletes participated in this study has also been shown to indicate differences in preferences and perceptions [6]. Examined a variety of sports types and did find that high school athletes preferred more training and instruction compared with midget athletes, and that training and instruction strategies increased slightly from high school to college athletes. Terry and Howe [4] even examined differences between athlete preferences based on their participation in either interdependent or independent sports. The study found that independent athletes preferred democratic behaviors in coaches, while non-independent athletes preferred autocratic behavior. Using the Leadership Scale of Sport (LSS), studied found that team sport athletes preferred training and instruction behavior significantly more than members of individual sports [3].

2 Method

This study used a descriptive and inferential research by using the questionnaire to conduct this study to find the related information. This study directly looked at the process of answering the questionnaire, and this is because the samples have 10–15 min to answer the questionnaires. Krejcie and Morgan [7] said appropriate samples come to 342 (n = 342). The questionnaire was distributed with the total of 352 Malaysian youth athletes from various sports in case of dropped out rate concerned.

3 Samplings

The sample was selected purposively. Target estimated population was 2500 of KARISMA Malaysian youth athletes. The total questionnaire was distributed to 184 samples of male athletes and 168 of female athletes. Data were collected in 6 weeks.

4 Instrumentation

This study conducted was adopted an established questionnaires. The questionnaire consists of two sections. Section A is about demographic section of samples. Section B is on coaching behaviors. It was adopted Leadership Scale of Sports (LSS) and it included the training and instruction with autocratic behavior, democratic behavior, social support, and positive feedback. Samples indicated on a 5-point Likert with the reliability of 0.89.

5 Data Analysis

The collected data had been analyzed by using descriptive statistic and an inferential statistic which are Independent t-Test, ANOVA, and Spearman. Descriptive data determine the overall mean score of coaching behaviors preferred by Malaysian youth athletes.

Moreover, an inferential statistic which is Independent t-Test for the comparison between genders and ANOVA for the comparison between sport and Spearmen Rho in order to rank the preferred coaching behaviors of all samples.

6 Results

The overall ranking of coaches behaviors preferred by Malaysian KARISMA Athletes as showed in the Table 1.

Table 1 showed the overall level of preferred coaching behavior by KARISMA 2015 athletes based on mean and standard deviation between dimensions of coaching behaviors liked: Positive Feedback, Social Support, Democratic, Autocratic, and Training Instruction. Democratic with the highest score of M = 4.43, and the lowest is social support with the score M = 3.44. Based on this data, the highest coaching behavior preferred by 2015 Malaysian KARISMA athletes’ was Democratic.

Table 1 Descriptive result of preferred coaching behaviors of Malaysian KARISMA athletes (n = 342)
Full size table

Table 2 showed the result of preferred coaching behavioral based on preferred coaches behaviors. The statistical reading for male and female youth athletes was significantly different between Autocratic behavior among less performed youth athletes.

Table 2 Independent t-Test result of preferred coaching behavior between gender
Full size table

Comparison of Coaching Behavioral preferred by 2015 Malaysian KRISMA athletes between sports (Table 3).

Table 3 Preferred coaching behaviors between different sports
Full size table

Table (4) showed the ANOVA result of preferred coaching behavior for Training Instruction ion between different sports. The statistical reading is F = 6.40, P < 0.05.

Table 4 ANOVA result of preferred coaching leadership styles between sports
Full size table

7 Discussion

Based on Table 3, the result concludes that the highest preference of coaching behavior overall Malaysian youth athletes was democratic. Meanwhile, the lowest preference was social support behavior. It reflected that the democratic behavior was the most effective coaching behavior preferred by the youth athletes in line with [8] studied. However, democratic coaches do not have to leave all the decision-making up to the team.

The finding of this study was showed the result of the second objective which was the preferred coaching behavior among Malaysian youth athletes between different sports.

8 Conclusion

This study concluded that the preferred coaching behavior of Malaysian youth athletes was democratic. Hence, coaches needed to implement the democratic coaching behavior towards their athletes and maybe this method will increase athletes’ performance in the future. This study is also in line with some past studies and it could contribute to coaching science, the body of knowledge.