The effect of coach communication skills on athletes' anger management: Quantitative research on demographic variables and structural relationships

Abstract

This study is to investigate the relationship and effect between coaches' communication skills and athletes' trait anger and anger expression styles. In the study, t-test and ANOVA analyses were applied on demographic variables. Then, confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis methods and the structural relationship between the variables were evaluated. Quantitative methods were used in the research and inferences were made about coach-athlete communication in accordance with the findings obtained. A total of 456 athletes, including 194 women (42.5%) and 262 men (57.5%), participated in the study voluntarily. The personal information form prepared by the researcher, the Coach Communication Skill Scale According to Athlete Perception and the Trait Anger-Anger Expression Style Scale were used to collect the data. The data were analyzed with SPSS 25.0 and Amos 22 software. The significance level was determined as 0.05 in all analyses. In the findings obtained, according to the perception of the athlete, according to coach communication skills and constant anger sub-dimensions; significant differences were found between the variables of gender, age, nationality level and sports year. On the other hand, significant differences were observed between the gender and nationality status variables in the internal and external projection of anger sub-dimensions. In the control of anger sub-dimension, significant differences were found between the variables of age, nationality status and sports year. After the scales were tested by confirmatory factor analysis, the predictive effect of coach communication on anger status was examined by path analysis. The findings show that coach communication predicts athletes' anger emotion at a significant level (impact ratio = .36). These results reveal that coach-athlete communication has a significant effect on anger management in athletes.