Conceptualizing and testing a new tripartite measure of coach interpersonal behaviors

By Nikita Bhavsar, Nikos Ntoumanis, E. Quested, D. Gucciardi, C. Thøgersen‐Ntoumani, Richard M. Ryan, J. Reeve, P. Sarrazin, Kimberley J. Bartholomew. Psychology of Sport And Exercise, 2019

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ObjectivesVarious self-report measures based on Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2017) have been developed to assess athletes’ perceptions of their coaches’ need supportive and thwarting behaviors. We propose that it is also conceptually important to distinguish between coaching behaviors that thwart and those that are indifferent to athletes’ psychological needs. This distinction is useful, as we contend that athletes’ degree of need frustration, and concomitant negative outcomes, are likely to be more pronounced in a coaching environment that actively thwarts (vs. is indifferent to) athletes’ needs. In this three-study paper, we outline the conceptual rationale for, the development of, and initial validity evidence for a tripartite (need supportive, thwarting, and indifferent) measure of interpersonal behaviors of coaches (TMIB-C).MethodIn Study 1, we developed 54 candidate items and gathered evidence for their face and content validity with athletes and an expert panel. Competing factor models were tested in Study 2 to determine the best representation of the measure’s factor structure. In Study 3, we tested the replication of such models and the nomological network surrounding the identified factors.ResultsIn Study 2, a 22-item, three-factor structure (supportive, thwarting, and indifferent behaviors) using exploratory structural equation modeling, demonstrated acceptable fit, good standardized factor loadings, factor correlations in the expected directions, and acceptable estimates of internal consistency. This model was replicated in Study 3. Tests of nomological networks showed that as expected, need indifference was a weaker predictor of autonomy and competence need frustration as compared to need thwarting, and the only significant predictor of irrelevant thoughts. Unexpectedly, however, need indifference was also as good as, or a better predictor than need thwarting was of exhaustion and relatedness need frustration, respectively.ConclusionsEvidence supports the TMIB-C as a parsimonious and promising measure of athletes’ perceptions of coach interpersonal behaviors. Our tripartite conceptualization and measure should be further tested in terms of its predictive utility in order to advance conceptual understanding and intervention efforts targeting interpersonal behaviors in sport, and potentially other life domains.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ccaf3d2dc3af5e399584b782e6bdffa38ee0f771

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Citations in the corpus

Basic psychological need theory: Advancements, critical themes, and future directions (2020, unknown): “Parallel to the differentiation between need satisfaction and need frustration, an increasing number of studies have explored the unique and independent contributions of autonomy-supportive and controlling styles (e.g., Bartholomew et al. 2011; Bhavsar et al. 2019; Haerens et al. 2018; Patall et al.”
How teachers can support students’ agentic engagement (2020, background): “Indifferent instructional behaviors include negligence or inattention to students’ inner motivational resources (e.g., “My teacher is unresponsive to my opinions”; “My teacher is indifferent to how I feel”; Bhavsar et al., 2019).”