Team cohesion of athletes and coaching skills of coaches: Their relationship to team performance

Abstract

This study aimed to find the relationship of the level of the team cohesion of athletes and coaching skills of coaches to team performance as perceived by the athletes. The purposive sampling method was used in selecting the 60 athletes from the Third Congressional District of Iloilo. They were classified according to sex, length of membership in sports, length of being coached, and length of coaching experience of their coaches. The research instruments utilized were the Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Widemeyer & Brawley, 1985) for team cohesion of athletes and Leadership Scale for Sports (Chellandurai & Saleh, 1980) for coaching skills for coaches. The data gathered were computer- processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The descriptive statistics employed were frequency count, mean and standard deviation while the inferential statistics utilized were Mann Whitney-U test and Spearman rank order correlation, both set at .05 alpha. The findings revealed that the level of team cohesion of athletes were fair. The coaching skills of coaches as perceived by athletes were manifested more on positive feedback; however, male athletes and those with coaches with short coaching experience believed that training and instruction are also needed as coaching skills of a coach. The team performance of the athletes was high. No significant differences existed in the team cohesion of athletes when grouped as to sex, length of being coached and coach's length of coaching experience. However, a significant difference was noted among athletes grouped as to length of membership in sports. Furthermore, the study revealed a significant relationship between team cohesion and coaching skills.