The Relationship between Soccer Club Coaches’ Decision-Making Style, Basic Psychological Needs, and Intention to Continue to Exercise: Based on Amateur Male Soccer Club Members in Korea

Chul-Ho Bum,Kyongmin Lee,Yongkoo Noh

doi:10.3390/socsci7100200

Chul-Ho Bum, Kyongmin Lee + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100200

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Abstract

Numerous studies in sports science have investigated the relationships between coaching behavior, basic psychological needs, and intention to continue to exercise in sport participants in order to promote their continued exercise participation. However, little is known about the effect of the coach’s decision-making style on sport participants’ basic psychological needs and intention to continue to exercise. Thus, this study empirically investigated the relationship between these three variables. For this purpose, a survey was given to a convenience sample of 200 members of amateur male soccer clubs in Seoul and Gyeonggi, Korea. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that the type of coach that makes decisions based on a thorough analysis and reasonable evaluation of all possible solutions had a greater effect on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and a greater effect on intention to continue to exercise in soccer club members than the types of coaches who use other styles of decision making in coaching. In addition, the intention to continue to exercise in soccer club members was higher when they voluntarily participated in soccer activities and when they made a strong emotional bond with the people they were exercising with. The findings of this study may provide the basic data on the coaches’ decision-making style needed to improve sport participants’ internal motivation and to stimulate their intention to continue to exercise.

Highlights

Sport participation helps people to maintain physical and mental health and lead happy lives.Continued sport participation is highly important to maintain physical and mental health (Biddle and Mutrie 2007)
Decision-making styles, basic psychological needs, and intention to continue to exercise in male soccer club members
The effect of coaches’ decision-making style on the basic psychological needs in male soccer club members was assessed: Rational coaches had a positive effect on autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and intuitive coaches on autonomy and competence; dependent coaches had a negative effect on autonomy and avoidant coaches on relatedness

Summary

Introduction

Sport participation helps people to maintain physical and mental health and lead happy lives.Continued sport participation is highly important to maintain physical and mental health (Biddle and Mutrie 2007). If an individual drops out of a sport activity, it would cost him or her the physical, mental, and social benefits that the sport activity would have provided (Gould et al 1985). For these reasons, major research topics in sports science include identifying the factors affecting exercise continuation in sport participants and finding efficient ways to improve the practice of continued exercise (Kohlstedt et al 2013; McArthur et al 2014; Somnil and Khaothin 2016)

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