Voices of Singapore national beach volleyball female athletes: What is an ideal coach?

Transformational coaching

Transformational coaching is representative of a person-centred approach in coaching.^1,2 Sport Singapore (SportSG), a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth of the Singapore Government, recognizes the coach as the main driving force in striving for sporting excellence in Singapore.^3,4 Singapore’s push for transformational coaching reflects the relevance of this theory in the current sporting context. ³ Transformational coaches can skilfully use sport as a platform to help athletes learn life lessons and appreciate their increase in knowledge. ¹ By adopting the transformational coaching style, possible outcomes often include an increase in athlete satisfaction, performance, cohesion and intrinsic motivation. ² Transformational leadership in coaching comprises of four components: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.^5,6

The role of a coach

Coaches conduct training and provide instruction and advice to athletes to improve their sporting performance. ⁷ Coaches have the greatest influence on athletes as they develop as performers and individuals.^7–9 Coaches design game plans and come up with strategies that affect their athletes’ sporting performances during competitions. ¹⁰ The coaching context involves a complex system of interactions between the coach, athlete and the environment. ¹¹ The coaching process has a holistic nature, ¹² and is not solely about making the connection between coaching content and methods, but more significantly, connections between people and life in general. ¹³ Becker ⁹ stated that coaches hold significant accountability for the holistic development of an athlete, including physical, cognitive, tactics, techniques and results. As such, the role of a coach is important because poor coaching may be detrimental to an athlete’s performance and development. Gearity and Murray ¹⁴ explained that poor coaches have the tendency to induce self-doubt in athletes, become a distraction during athletes’ performances and are demotivating. Past research had shown that motivational levels of athletes could be affected by coaches’ leadership ¹⁵ and coaching styles.^7,16 When coaches’ behaviours, leadership and coaching styles are congruent to preferences of athletes,^15,17,18 athletes’ satisfaction and team performance may improve. Therefore, it is paramount to recognize the importance of the role of a coach and for coaches to understand the notion of an ‘ideal coach’, so that their coaching can align with the preferences of female athletes, therefore allowing a strong and positive coach-athlete relationship to be established. The coaches’ quest to be an ‘ideal coach’ is a constant work-in-progress to coaching excellence, and there are strong benefits to be had in the practice of caring for elite athletes in sustainable coaching. ¹⁹ With a strong and positive coach-athlete relationship, there may be an increase in athletes’ satisfaction, motivational levels, self-esteem, and performance successes, along with a reduction in athletes’ anxiety levels.^20–23

Coaching female athletes

According to Merchant, ²⁴ females’ communication styles are more personal and relational. Female athletes prefer a democratic coach-athlete environment where they have a part in decision-making processes.^25,26 In addition, female athletes expect coaches to understand them as an athlete and person.^19,27,28 As such, when working with female athletes, the coach-athlete relationship should be based on guidance and mentorship. ²⁸ According to Jowett and Cockerill, ⁸ positive coach-athlete relationships are built on factors such as care and concern, support, mutual respect, trust, and shared knowledge and understanding. Positive reinforcement and encouragement are good motivators for female athletes. ²⁹ For example, elite female soccer athletes were pleased when their coach was ‘available to listen’ and considered athlete opinions. ²⁹ Female athletes tend to seek validation of their feelings and empathy from significant others, ³⁰ including coaches. While past research had explored the coaching preferences of athletes in general,^7,15,31 few are in-depth analyses on the perspective of female athletes in a Singapore context. Therefore, this research aims to focus on the perspective of female athletes to gain greater insights about what makes an ideal coach. By understanding the perspectives of female athletes, coaches may be able to work better with female athletes and help them achieve positive developmental outcomes in the sports environment. ³²

Beach volleyball: A growing sport

Beach volleyball is seeing a rise in popularity as a legitimate sport since its debut in Atlanta Summer Olympic Games 1996.^33–35 The team dynamics in beach volleyball are considerably different as compared to other sports as the team is relatively smaller than other team sports – usually consisting of two athletes and one coach. Unlike sports like soccer and basketball, beach volleyball coaches are not allowed to communicate with their athletes during gameplay, and at half-time or time-outs. Moreover, in beach volleyball, there are no other athletes available for substitution. Since a beach volleyball team is relatively smaller than other sport teams, the coach-athlete relationship is more significant than that of larger sports teams. ³⁶

Singapore national beach volleyball team

Over the recent decade, Singapore’s beach volleyball scene has gained more attention with the increase in participation in overseas tournaments and the active hosting of local and international competitions. In 2016, both male and female teams participated in the World Beach Volleyball Championship in Switzerland. ³⁷ In the following two years, Singapore qualified and competed in the Commonwealth Games, in the 2018 Gold Coast Games. Other than sending athletes to compete in major tournaments, Singapore had hosted a FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) World Tour in Sentosa, where international beach volleyball teams from all over the world competed. Currently, the Singapore national beach volleyball team has two local coaches, and one foreign coach, with all of them being male coaches. All female beach volleyball athletes in Singapore only have experience working with male coaches, and not with female coaches. There are few female beach volleyball coaches in Singapore and none of them have worked with the national female beach volleyball team. Apart from Singapore, many elite beach volleyball female athletes from other countries also work with male coaches. Some examples include the United States of America, ³⁸ Australia, ³⁹ and Canada. ⁴⁰ The Singapore women’s national beach volleyball team consists of senior and youth athletes. Beach volleyball training locations are limited to three locations in the country. On average, the team completes five ball and three gym sessions a week. With the female athletes working closely with the coaches, it is important for the male coaches to better understand and care for female athletes. Caring coaches employ strategies such listening to their athletes, taking time to interact and showing empathy for the individual. These strategies create a training environment where individual and athlete well-being are met. ¹⁹

It is important to deepen the understanding of what an ideal coach means to female beach volleyball athletes. Although past studies investigating ideal qualities that athletes look for in a coach have been done in several competitive sporting activities – such as soccer, ²⁹ basketball,^25,28 volleyball,^41,42 limited research has investigated the qualities of an ideal coach in the context of beach volleyball. In addition, research show that female athletes have their own needs and expectations of a coach.^28,30 In this research, the question that will be addressed is: what do Singapore national beach volleyball female athletes voice about an ideal coach within their sporting context? With a better understanding of how national beach volleyball female athletes view an ideal coach, this knowledge can help coaches sustain work with female beach volleyball athletes to develop their potential as athletes and individuals.

Participants

Upon Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, the research was proposed to the potential participants. Upon agreement to participate in the research, informed consent was presented to the participants. After the informed consent were signed by the participants, they were contacted for an initial interview with the researcher. A total of seven participants who had rich knowledge and at least one year of experience in the Singapore national female beach volleyball team were recruited. ⁴³ These seven participants are all the senior athletes in the Singapore national female beach volleyball team. While knowledge and experience are important, it is equally important for the participants to be available and willing to participate in the research, with the ability to articulate their experience in an expressive and reflective manner. ⁵⁰ One participant has worked with one coach, three participants have worked with four coaches, and three other participants have worked with five coaches during their time in the Singapore national beach volleyball team. The ages of the participants were 22 ± 2 years old, with 3.8 ± 1.3 years of experience with the Singapore national beach volleyball team. Values are reported in mean ± SD unless otherwise stated.

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews were conducted at locations that were comfortable and quiet, as identified by the participants. Data collection took place from 10 January to 28 February 2019. For each participant, the official interview lasted an average of 45 minutes. To protect the anonymity of the participants, the authors refrained from using their real names. An introduction regarding this research was given to each participant before the interview. As participants may have had experiences with coaches in other sports, they were reminded that the context of this research is based on their experiences in the Singapore national beach volleyball team. The interview for each participant provided insights into what conceptions the Singapore national beach volleyball female athletes have about an ideal coach. In the interview, general questions were asked to find out the participants’ understanding of an ideal coach in Singapore beach volleyball. The interview guide follows the recommendations of Morgan and Kreuger. ⁵¹ Broad and general questions were asked, followed by specific questions that addresses the key questions. Participants were probed to gain better understanding about their answers for the key questions.

At the start of the interview, opening questions were asked regarding the participants’ age, previous playing experiences in the Singapore national beach volleyball team, and the number of coaches they had worked with during their time in the team. Examples of these questions include: “How many years have you been training with the national beach volleyball team?” and “How many coaches have you worked with during your time in the team?”. Then, introductory questions were asked regarding the topic of the research. Some examples of introductory questions include: “Can you share with me three qualities that you think an ideal coach would have?” and “Can you provide me with your understanding of an ideal coach in beach volleyball?” In general, participants gave brief answers and listed three qualities that they felt an ideal coach in beach volleyball should possess. Next, transition questions give participants a logical link to the upcoming key questions. In the interviews with the participants, transition questions tend to ask for brief elaboration of what they have shared regarding an ideal coach. Transition questions asked include: “Can you give me an example of the drill that you mentioned?” and “Can you give me a brief explanation of why you think that is important?”. Subsequently, we delve into the main part of the interview with the key questions. Key questions focus on their unique experiences of the participants with their coaches and draw out the main reasons why they feel that those qualities that they have identified are important for an ideal coach. The key questions focus on the voices of the female athletes and their experiences with their previous coaches in the Singapore national beach volleyball team. Examples of key questions include: “Why is this an important quality for a coach?”, “How did this become an important quality that you look for in an ideal coach?” and “Why/how did you come to realise that two-way communication is important?”. At the end of the interview, participants were asked if they had anything more to add onto their responses, and each interview was wrapped up with a summary of the session.

The author’s iPhone was used as an audio recording device to record the interviews. The interview recordings were transferred to a thumb drive for storage in the authors’ laptop and were transcribed upon completion of data collection. Transcription process took approximately 22 hours. Member-checking was conducted, a process where the participants checked for accuracy and sensitivity of their respective interview transcriptions. All participants had checked for sensitivity and accuracy of their respective interview transcriptions and responded to the member-checking process. Any inaccuracies in the interview transcriptions were corrected with the participants’ feedback. Throughout the research process, any doubts in the interpretation of the data could be clarified with the participants. ⁵²

Data analysis

Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data that were collected. Thematic analysis, an independent qualitative descriptive approach, is defined as a method for identifying, analyzing and reporting themes within data. ⁵³ In the first phase of thematic analysis of the qualitative data, the researchers familiarized themselves with the interview data that had been collected and transcribed, by reading and re-reading the data.^53,54 It is recommended that the data analysts immerse themselves in the data collected to attain a sense of the whole by reading and re-reading. ⁵⁵ Authors re-read the transcriptions carefully and repeatedly, to ensure familiarization with the data. In the second phase of thematic analysis, codes were identified for the systematic analysis of the data through initial coding. ⁵³ Codes are ‘building blocks of analysis’ that help to provide a concise summary of a portion of the data collected. ⁵³ In this research, codes are presented as subthemes as building blocks of analysis for creating the main themes. In the third phase of thematic analysis, subthemes were developed into main themes that represent a level of ‘patterned response or meaning within the data set’. ⁵³ In the fourth phase of thematic analysis, the authors met and reviewed the common themes that were created about what the participants thought about an ideal coach. Three main themes were identified from what the participants had voiced out about an ideal coach based on their experiences in Singapore national beach volleyball team. In this phase, it is important to ensure that themes identified can represent the most important elements of the data that had been collected, in relation to the research question. ⁵³ The themes were related yet not repetitive, and they have a singular focus. ⁵³ In the next phase, the themes were defined and named. Under each theme, vivid examples and extracts in the interview data were identified to capture the essence of the theme. In the last phase of thematic analysis, themes were woven together in a logical and coherent manner and presented in this report. ⁵³

Understanding the female athletes

The first common theme that had been derived from the voices of the participants is for an ideal coach to be able to understand the female athletes. As shown in Figure 1, subthemes include – approaching every athlete as an individual, building trust and a comfortable environment for athlete disclosure, and planning effective training. According to the data collected from the participants, the ability to understand female athletes is viewed as the most important quality of an ideal coach. This theme was the most frequently reiterated during the interviews with the participants. Participants mentioned that understanding between a coach and themselves is the foundation for building an effective coach-athlete relationship. A high level of understanding between coaches and female athletes can assist coaches in planning for effective training.

Being a role model with responsibility

An ideal coach should be a responsible role model for female athletes. According to the participants, behaviours that they look out for in an ideal coach include – setting a good example and accountability.

Possessing rich experiences as coach and athlete

Participants shared that an ideal coach is one who has experience as a coach and an athlete. When coaches were once an athlete, only then can they understand what the athletes are going through. Coaches who had been athletes themselves would know what their own athletes need or do not need during critical situations. Furthermore, participants mentioned that coaches with rich experiences as athletes would be able to develop effective training methods as they are coaching.