Developmental pathways of youth sports coaches in Singapore

• Main Author: Tan, Bryan Yu Ru
• Other Authors: -
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology::Motivation
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/153096
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Youth sports coaches play an important part of youth athletes’ journey, providing them with quality sporting experience and reaching their goals. The primary purpose of this research is identifying the key aspects of developmental pathways of youth coaches from different sports in Singapore. A total of twelve youth coaches (n = 11 male, n = 1 female) from 12 sports participated in this study. All participants needed to have at least one year of experience for coaching Singapore youth athletes in school, club, or national team. Participation was voluntary and they were allowed to stop the interview at any point of time when they feel uncomfortable. Qualitative analysis of the content was implemented following the procedures outlined by Côté and colleagues (1993). Main findings of this study include: (1) Intrinsic motivation outweigh extrinsic motivation in coaches’ motivation to coach, (2) Challenges faced as a coach were athlete management and insufficient coach education, (3) Experiences and resources aids in coaches’ development, and (4) Support required to improve coaching expertise were coaching assistance, organisation support and external support. These findings may be useful in helping youth coaches grow and take their coaching standards to a higher level.