Paper Sample on Coaches' Perceptions of Benefits and Barriers of Trust in Football Coaching

Introduction

The main purpose of this study was to investigate coaches' perceptions about the benefits and barriers of developing trust throughout their coaching role within football. The eventual findings of the research showed that coaches perceived that there were five main categories for the benefits of trust in their coaching role and football as a sport. These benefits were; communication, analysis, athlete evolvement and coach-athlete relationship and approachability. The barriers to building trust between the coaches and athlete were also established. The barriers were grouped into two categories, and they include coach behaviors and child behaviors.

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Relation of Results to the Hypothesis

This study intended to investigate how coaches perceive the benefits and barriers to trust within football. The research was done qualitatively. It was found that trust among coaches and players can be developed through numerous techniques. The concepts to be considered were trust development, barriers to developing trust and challenges experienced in developing trust. To build trust, there must be communication as it aids interaction between people. The results concluded that coaches acknowledge that building trust has benefits which are, approachability, enhancing the relationship between the coach and athlete, involving the athletes as well as building communication.

Evaluation of Literature

The benefits of trust between the coaches and athletes found in this research include communication, analysis, athlete evolvement, coach-athlete relationship, and approachability. The barriers to trust development were divided into two categories which are coach behavior and child behavior.

Benefits

The first benefit of trust was communication. There are studies that have been carried out to show how trust can be built through communication. One study was conducted to explore the role communication plays in intensive care units. It was carried out between intensivists and parents within the pediatrics in the intensive care unit. The study found out that parents in the intensive care unit acknowledged that communication is very important when it comes to building trust. The parents said that they wished for the healthcare providers in the intensive care unit, to be honest, compassionate, coordinated, clear and comprehensive in their communication. The study concluded that communication is a very important and vital need when it comes to building trust in the intensive care unit. Also, it concluded that not only do people want communication but also need honesty, compassion, and clarity in communicating. From this study, it is indeed true that trust leads to the betterment of communication between coaches and athletes (DeLemos et al. 2010).

The second benefit of trust that coaches perceive is analysis. Coaches believe that when trust is built between them and athletes, they can analyze the skills and limitations of the athletes. This is because athletes depend on the coaches to help them in training to become better players, help them in improving their skills as well as making them stronger. According to "coaching skills: The importance of observational analysis" athletes may improve their skills, but the presence of the coach is much needed because they are the ones who offer observational analysis that can help in improving skills, game awareness and teamwork. The coach's ability to offer observational analysis acts as an examination on the skills, strengths, and weaknesses of an athlete. From this, it is evident that trust between coaches and athletes improves analysis. (Bennie& Connor 2012)

Another benefit of trust that was found is that it leads to athlete evolvement. This means that when there is trust between the coaches and athletes, they get a chance to move from one stage to another. A study carried out on the antecedents and consequences of athletes trust in the coach found out that trust in coach influences commitment to coach, willingness to cooperate and willingness to grow better. For this to happen, coaches need to boost their efforts in seeing their players grow by being fair, real and trustworthy. According to Abraham & Collins (2011), athletes can grow in an environment in which they are encouraged. Therefore, coaches need to encourage their athletes to become better by practicing a lot and also giving them hope and encouraging them to keep pressing on (Potrac, Gilbert, & Denison, 2013). This can be done because trust is key to their relationship. Helping the athletes in doing this ensures that they can come out of their comfort zones and do whatever it takes for one to move from one level to another. Moving from one level to another for athletes do not have to be in terms of financial stability. It can also be in terms of the development of performance skill; this means that evolvement for athletes can be measured in terms of skill development. Also, when coaches build trust which in turn leads to the evolvement of athletes, it is possible that they will also progress because they will have a great team that gives them hope to move forward and even train them well (Gould et al. 2007).

Subsequently, another benefit of the trust is that it develops a coach-athlete relationship. A good relationship is a must for everything to run smoothly. Previous studies show that trust indeed enhances the coach-athlete relationship (Bloom et al. 1998). Bloom and his counterparts wrote about the importance of mentoring in the development of coaches and athletes. In this, they acknowledged that indeed trust betters the relationships between coaches and athletes. It was found out that the relationship between coaches and athletes needs to be of high quality because it is needed for the best performance of the team. This can only be brought about when there is trust. Any kind of relationship needs to have trust in it for it to grow and be better (Hardman & Jones, 2010). The coach-athlete relationship is not an exception. Therefore, from this works, it is true that trust is of benefit because it enhances the relationship between coaches and athletes.

The last benefit of trust that was found in this study is that it enables approachability. This means that when there is trust between the coaches and athletes, a conducive environment is created and they can be free to approach each other. A study was carried out, and it revealed that the more approachable a coach is, the more the athletes are free and open to them. Being approachable is brought about by trust. This also improves the performance of the athletes because they are free with the coach and therefore they can approach them and ask for guidance whenever they feel inadequate (Burke et al.1995)

Barriers

This is what makes establishing trust difficult. The barriers identified were coach behaviors and child behaviors. Coaches play a big role in being barriers to building trust. Venable 2016, says that coaches fail to take into considerations what needs to be done in order to build trust. They are the ones who may contribute to mistrust because they fail to react to issues that may lead to mistrust between them and athletes. On child behaviors, the athletes contribute much to a lack of trust between them. They do this when they fail to organize themselves well and be each brother's keeper leading to mistrust. They may also be barriers to trust when they fail to follow the schedule of the group (Athanasopoulou & Dopson, 2015).

Criticism of Methodology

The methodology used in this study was a semi-structured interview with questions and probes. The questions were left open-ended and closed to ensure time efficiency. As stipulated by Qu & Dumay (2011), this methodology has got advantages and disadvantages which may make it either suitable or not very suitable for conducting studies. One positivity with this kind of methodology is that the questions that are offered to the participants are prepared before the main interview. This gives the interviewer an upper hand in competence because he or she can internalize the questions before the interview. The disadvantage of this methodology is that the interviews may consume a lot of time and they might be very expensive too (Opdenakker 2006).

Value of the Research

By being able to identify the benefits and barriers in their profession of coaching, coaches were equipped with knowledge of how they can build trust within their teams which is a very important aspect of any relationship (Solomon et al. 2003). By knowing the benefits of building trust between them and athletes, they can look forward to building it because they do realize that it has many advantages that make them grow as a team (Shockley et al. 2010).

According to Schein et al., (2013), knowing what makes establishing trust hard is of value because, with this information, the coaches and athletes can come together and decide to put away their differences and work towards a common course, which is, making the team perform to its best. Also, this research is of value because it helps both the athletes and coaches realize their shortcomings within the group that might be barriers to building trust. After knowing this, they can decide to work on their shortcomings. When training coaches, a unit about the importance of trust between them and athletes can be taught to make the whole process worthwhile (Doloi, 2009).

Future Research Questions

There might be questions that might arise in the future about this study. The questions may develop due to the study not giving much information about the topic- which is trust. The questions that are likely to arise are; How do athletes perceive benefits and barriers of developing trust, how do athletes perceive how their coach builds trust between them and lastly, how can teammates develop trust? Future questions sometimes lead to the development of the next or future research topics. So, the above questions might be a topic for any research that may come in the future.

Conclusion

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of coaches on the benefits and barriers of developing trust within their role of coaching. There has been no such study that has been carried out on this domain of sport- Many people do not know that trust is a very important virtue when it comes to coaching teams (Peachey & Cohen 2016). As stipulated by Meek & Lewis (2014), it is a very important aspect in coaching because it influences much that goes on within a team, right from the coach up to the athletes. At the end of the study, the coaches' perceptions concerning trust within their role were discovered. It was discovered that trust is a very important aspect when it comes to managing a team of athletes (Dirks, 2000).

In the future, trust can be used by coaches as a training unit for their athletes in the field of football and other sports. Trust can also be used to demonstrate the importance of cohesiveness in any kind of relationship (Mach et al. 2010).

References

Abraham, A., & Collins, D. (2011). Effective skill development: How should athletes' skills be developed. Performance psychology: A practitioner's guide. Eds. D. Collins, A. Button, H. Richards. Elsevier. Oxford 2011a, 207, 229.

Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2015). Developing leaders by executive coaching: Practice and evidence. OUP Oxford.

Bennie, A., & O'Connor, D. (2012). Coach-athlete relationships: A qualitative study of professional sport teams in Australia. International Journal of Sport and Health Science, 201208.

Bloom, G. A., Durand-Bush, N., Schinke, R. J., & Salmela, J. H. (1998). The importance of mentoring in the development of coaches and athletes. International journal of sport psychology, 29, 267-281.