Female Coaches Seem More Disempowering Than Male Coaches: High School Female Athletes' Perspective

• In Event: Considering Sport, Activity, and Exercise in Youth Education

Abstract

As limited evidence is available regarding the relationships between the gender of the coach and perceived motivational climates, this mixed-methods study aimed to (a) quantitatively compare the five dimensions of perceived empowering (task-involving, autonomy-supportive, and socially supportive) and disempowering (ego-involving and controlling) climates across the gender of the coach, and (b) qualitatively explore the coaching behaviors associated with various motivational climate dimensions. Participants were 196 female athletes (Mage = 15.34), from three high schools in the southwestern U.S., who completed a survey on perceived coach-created motivational climates. Focus group interviews were conducted with a subsample of 13 athletes. Both univariate and content analyses suggest that high school female athletes perceive female coaches as more ego-involving and controlling than male coaches.

Authors

• Tsz Lun Chu, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

• Tao Zhang, University of North Texas