The Effects of Coach Pregame Speeches on Young Players’ Self-efficacy

Víctor J. Rubio, José Manuel Hernández, Iván Sánchez-Iglesias, Alicia Cano, Rafael Bureo

Abstract

In contrast with the extensive use of coaches’ pre-game speeches, there is a lack of research on the effects of such commonly used strategy. Different authors have prompted that the pre-game speech contributes to enhanced athletes’ self-efficacy. However, previous results are inconclusive. This study examines its effects on young athletes’ self-efficacy in two different quantitative studies. Study 1 compared athletes’ self-efficacy beliefs when arriving to the premises and immediately after receiving the coach’s speech in a sample of 61 soccer players (male=42, female=19; age range: 10–16) from 6 different teams. Repeated measures ANOVA showed significant results, F(1, 60) = 27.32, p < .001, η2 = .313. However, such differences did not appear when age was added as covariate, F(1, 58) = 0.08, p = .777, η2 = .001. In order to control for the effect of the match itself, Study 2 analyzed the influence of pre-game speeches on eight matches following the same procedure in a sample of ten male players (M = 16.77 years old, SD = 0.60, range: 16–17 years old) from the same team. Results showed the differences were attributable to the match, F(7, 98.54) = 7.625, p < .001, rather than to the pre-game speech. According to our results, differences found are due to age and the specific match the players have to face and seems pre-game speeches do not have any influence on athletes’ perceived efficacy. Whether such speeches have an effect on other facets should be stablished in future work.

Keywords

Coaches’ pregame speeches, Self-efficacy beliefs; Coaching effectiveness; Motivation

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