Athletic Coaching from an Instructional Communication Perspective: The Influence of Coach Experience on High School Wrestlers' Preferences and Perceptions of Coaching Behaviors Across a Season

Abstract

One learning environment that has gone largely unexamined in the communication field is the context of coaching. Athletic coaches bear some similarities and also some differences relative to classroom instruction. The present study examined the influence of coach experience on young athletes' preferences for, and perceptions of, coaches' leadership behaviors (autocratic, demo cratic, social support, positive feedback, and training and instruction) across an athletic season. Athletes from 17 high school wrestling teams completed surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the athletic season. Players both perceived and preferred more autocratic coaching behaviors at the end of the season than at the beginning. Coaches and athletes alike recognized that less positive feedback was taking place at the end of the season. Experienced coaches regarded themselves as less autocratic at the end of the season than at the beginning, whereas their less experienced colleagues perceived the opposite pattern. In contrast with humanistic prescriptions for instructional communication, this study indicates that negative control strategies can be quite satisfactory at times, particularly if a positive instructional climate was constructed early on.