Youth athletes' perceptions of coaching effectiveness

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the concept of coaching effectiveness, with a specific focus on the development of youth athletes through youth athlete perceptions ofeffective coaching behaviours. The current thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I is an introduction that gives some initial insight into coaching effectiveness, and explains the layout of the thesis, including aims and hypotheses. Chapter II is a critical review that provides a comprehensive summary of the effective coaching literature relevant to this thesis. This chapter identifies the origins of effective coaching research, including conceptual models and frameworks, and provides an overview of studies that have investigated effective coaching. This chapter also highlights limitations of the existing literature and outlines areas for future research. Chapter III reports Study One of this thesis, which developed the Youth Coaching Effectiveness Scale (YCES), an integrated 33-item measure of youth athletes' perceptions of coaching effectiveness. Findings showed that of the four theoretically relevant factor structures tested, a more optimal fit was provided by a first-order seven-factor model. Chapter IV reports Study Two of this thesis, which investigated youth academy football players’ perceptions of ​coaching effectiveness using the dimensions of the developed YCES. Findings identified links between such perceptions and players’ perceived competence, confidence, connection, and character across the competitive football season. ​Chapter V is a general discussion of the findings from the present thesis, discussing the contributions to literature, as well as stating limitations of the work and proposed directions of future research. The findings of this thesis helped to advance our knowledge and understanding of effective coaching behaviours and how youth athletes’ perceptions of coaching effectiveness are important for youth athlete development.