"Blissfully unaware"? Exploring the role of the coach-athlete relationship in sport coaches' awareness of their coaching behaviours

Background

Within the sport coaching literature, it has been claimed that coaches are "blissfully unaware" of their coaching behaviours (Smith & Smoll, 1997, p.18). This phrase originates from the work of Smith and colleagues (1978) who collected observation data from 51 Little League Baseball coaches and 542 players finding that correlations between observed behaviours and coaches' ratings of how frequently they performed the behaviours were low or nonsignificant, whereas the players' ratings correlated much more highly on the same perceived behaviour scales. Similar findings were subsequently reported in a basketball context (Smith et al., 1983).

Despite attempts to increase the awareness of sport coaches through formal coach education programmes, the idea that coaches remain "blissfully unaware" of their coaching behaviours has received further support in recent years (Millar et al., 2011; Partington et al., 2013; Pereira et al., 2009; Mason et al., 2020). For instance, looking specifically at football coaches' awareness of their practice activities and coaching behaviours, Partington and Cushion (2013) found that coaches exhibited different behaviours in a training context compared to a playing context and were unable to explain their reasons for doing so. In fact, many coaches were unaware that their behaviour was different.

However, a number of issues remain that warrant further investigation. Firstly, the original research conducted by Smith and Smoll focused only on team sports (baseball and basketball), male participants and US-based youth sport (Smith et al., 1978; 1983). The generalisability of their findings to other sports and populations is, therefore, unknown.

Secondly, the measure that they used, the Coaching Behavior Assessment System (CBAS; Smith et al., 1977), fails to capture behavioural distinctions within categories (e.g., the positive reinforcement category includes both verbal and non-verbal positive responses to desirable behaviours). Thirdly, coaches' self-ratings were analysed as an aggregated behavioural profile rather than at the individual level (i.e., relative to each individual athlete in the team, squad or group).

Fourthly, this research base overlooks the role of the coach-athlete relationship, which is thought to be 'at the heart of effective and successful coaching' (Jowett & Shanmugam, 2016, p. 2) and which has been found to facilitate numerous performance- and wellbeing-related outcomes for both the coach and the athlete (for a summary, see Jowett & Slade, 2022). Moreover, there is an ever-growing empirical evidence base that shows the positive links between coach leadership behaviours and coach-athlete relationship quality (e.g., Felton & Jowett, 2013; Jowett et al., 2017a; López de Subijana et al., 2021; Senel et al., 2024; Zhao & Jowett, 2023)

Aims

This PhD project aims to address the limitations listed above and further understanding of the extent to which sport coaches remain "blissfully unaware" of their coaching behaviours and to explore the possible mediating role of coach-athlete relationship quality. Methods

This PhD project will adopt a four-stage, mixed methods approach that integrates post-positivist and interpretivist frameworks as well as a range of research designs, populations and time-horizons. By integrating these methods, the project will provide a holistic understanding of coaches' self-awareness and the mediating role of the coach-athlete relationship, ultimately contributing to more effective coaching practices.