Do coaches perceive themselves as influential on physical activity for girls in organised youth sport?

Justin M Guagliano,Richard R Rosenkranz,Chris Lonsdale,Emma S George,Gregory S Kolt,Naoyuki Hayashi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105960

Justin M Guagliano, Richard R Rosenkranz + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105960

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Abstract

Participation in organised youth sports (OYS) has been recommended as an opportunity to increase young peoples' physical activity (PA) levels. While coaches can potentially influence athletes' PA levels, what has not been explored is the question; do coaches perceive themselves as influential on PA for girls in OYS? Participants were 30 coaches of girls OYS teams aged 9–17 years in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area, Australia. Participants took part in a semi-structured interview that lasted approximately 30 minutes. They responded to questions regarding their perceived role as coaches, their perceptions of themselves as role models for PA, their views on their athletes' current PA levels, their opinions on improving their athletes' PA levels, and their perceived challenges as coaches in OYS. Many coaches considered themselves role models for PA due to their own involvement in organised sports. Coaches felt that they were conscious of girls' PA levels during training and could accurately gauge how active girls were. Coaches perceived their training sessions to provide sufficient PA and thus, did not feel the need to try to increase PA during training. Many coaches were cautious about conducting training sessions where the PA intensity was high for prolonged periods because they believed that it could potentially result in dropout from OYS. Coaches' perceived time commitment to OYS, variability of skill/experience amongst girls, and poor parental support as major challenges they experienced in OYS. This study provided a unique insight from the perspective of coaches in OYS. Most coaches felt that they had the potential to influence PA for girls in OYS; however, coaches may underestimate or not fully realise the impact they can have on the girls they coach. Future research should focus on educating coaches to capitalise on the opportunity they have to promote PA through OYS.

Highlights

Organised youth sports (OYS) is a structured physical activity (PA) setting for children and adolescents that is governed by the rules of the sport being played [1]
The five categories are presented in the following order: (1) participants’ perceived role as coaches; (2) their perception of themselves as role models for PA; (3) their views on their athletes’ current PA levels; (4) their opinions on improving their athletes’ PA levels; and (5) their perceived challenges as coaches in OYS
Frequency and duration of training sessions were the most commonly cited challenges with regard to promoting PA. Coaches felt they had too little time at training to discuss anything outside of the sport they were coaching. This is the first study to explore whether coaches perceive themselves as influential on PA for girls participating in OYS

Summary

Introduction

Organised youth sports (OYS) is a structured physical activity (PA) setting for children and adolescents that is governed by the rules of the sport being played [1]. The most recent prevalence data indicate that, approximately 66% of all Australian children (67% of all boys and 65% of all girls) participate in at least one OYS (including dance) outside of school hours [6,7]. Through their participation in OYS, children and adolescents have the potential to be exposed to an array of physical and psychosocial health and developmental benefits [8,9,10,11]

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