Motivation: Implications for Coaching and Teaching By Albert V. Carron. Published 1984 by Sports Dynamics, 534 Adelaide St., London, Ontario, Canada.

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1 JOURNAL OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY, 1987, 9, Motivation: Implications for Coaching and Teaching By Albert V. Carron. Published 1984 by Sports Dynamics, 534 Adelaide St., London, Ontario, Canada. Reviewed by Robin S. Vealey, Department of Health, Physical Education & Recreation, Miami University Within the last decade, research in the area of sport psychology has proliferated and a unique body of knowledge based upon the relationship between psychology and sport behavior has been established. Concern has been raised, however, that the dissemination of knowledge to practitioners (coaches and teachers) has not kept pace. For the field of sport psychology to have significant impact, it is imperative that knowledge not only be generated but also disserninated in order to transfer theory into practice. Motivation: Implications for Coaching and Teaching successfully bridges the gap between sport psychological theory and coachinglteaching practice by integrating various research areas into a logical framework and interpreting research findings to provide insight for effective teaching and coaching practice. The first significant feature of the book is that it illustrates to practitioners that motivation goes far beyond its popular buzzword meaning (e.g., how do I motivate my athletes?) and instead represents a complex, comprehensive, integrated phenomenon. Toward this end, Carron defines motivation as a theoretical construct that represents the "reasons why people select different activities, persist in them, and carry them out with 1) and illustrates how the myriad of research areas impinge upon this process. The second significant feature of the book is that the issues and rationale behind translating theory into practice are debated in the preface and first chapter. The gulf between sport scientist and sport practitioner is wide because the practitioner has traditionally discredited and distrusted the relevance of the scientific method. By using three analogies, Carron convincingly explains the dangers of divorcing practice from theory. He describes practitioners' uses of motivational techniques as a "fish in a fish market" phenomenon. That is, motivation is usually seen as a unidimensional phenomenon in which practitioners single out one component to the exclusion of all others. He deplores the "bricks in the brickyard" phenomenon in which different motivational techniques are tossed about without a meaningful framework to tie them together. And finally, he uses the "ivory tower" phenomenon to illustrate that although practitioners feel research either confirms the obvious or is unrelated to real problems (which is certainly true at times), effective coaching and teaching practice must be research-based. That is, common sense and experiential knowledge are essential, but they are not substitutes for scientific knowledge.

2 302 1 Book Reviews The third significant feature of the book is the unique framework in which motivation in sport is conceptualized. A model of motivation is advanced based on the following premises: (a) motivation is the result of contributing factors from within the individual as well as contributing factors from the environment, and (b) many things that contribute to individual motivation are not directly under the coach's or teacher's control. Thus the model separates those factors that serve to influence motivation into four areas: personal factors readily subject to change, personal factors not readily subject to change, situational factors readily subject to change, and situational factors not readily subject to change. Carron states that this frame of reference serves to emphasize that sources of potential motivation for the sport participant are numerous and complex, and that the coach and teacher may influence only selected areas. Following the introductory chapter, each of the four areas of the model is discussed within separate chapters. For each area, various factors contributing to motivation are introduced, research findings pertinent to each factor are outlined, and practical implications for coaches and teachers are set forth. Chapter formats are particularly effective in that key propositions are used as a means of organizing the relevant research in each area. These propositions should aid practitioners in drawing conclusions and integrating various research findings. Chapter 2 examines situational factors readily subject to change. Factors discussed in this area include the use of token rewards, goal setting, practice management, social reinforcement, and leadership behavior. Chapter 3 introduces situational factors not readily subject to change. These include the presence of others, competition and competitive behavior, and team dynamics. Chapter 4 discusses personal factors readily subject to change. Incentive motivation, the attributional process, intrinsic motivation, expectations of others, and self-confidence are all examined. Chapter 5 is concerned with personal factors not readily subject to change. In this chapter Carron presents propositions related to three personality characteristics predicted to influence motivation: anxiety, achievement motivation, and attentional style. The categorization of certain factors within a specific area could be debated. For example, why is incentive motivation readily subject to change when achievement motivation is not? Also, although attentional style may be conceptualized as a personality construct not readily subject to change, it is more widely accepted as a cognitive component that may be enhanced through attentional control training. Finally, if anxiety is not readily subject to change, why is self-confidence? Are they not similar, though opposite, constructs? However, these debates in no way detract from the accuracy and effectiveness of the book. Rather, it seems to be a matter of interpretation. Carron classifies incentive motivation as readily subject to change because he emphasizes the practitioner's role in understanding the different incentives that exist in sport and structuring the situation so that different needs can be met. Similarly, self-confidence is defined and its influence on sport behavior is discussed, but the focus of the chapter is on how practitioners can enhance levels of self-confidence in sport participants. And practitioners are simply educated as to individual differences in attentional styles. Perhaps at a more advanced level intervention into attentional control could be introduced. Thus these debates do not detract from the book, and in fact could be valuable if the book is used as a text in a classroom setting.

3 Book Reviews The question also arises as to the criteria for inclusion of the various research areas. Although Carron pulls a myriad of research areas together into an integrated frame of reference, such areas as arousal theory, modeling, and communication are not included. Obviously, any text is limited in the amount of rnaterial that can be effectively conveyed. However, it seems these three areas have a significant impact on motivation and are critical for practitioners to understand. In summary, this book seems well suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a specialization in coaching behavior. The material appears to be useful for the lay practitioner, although it may be too advanced for the novice practitioner without prior experience in physical education or sport studies. Also, although the book emphasizes a basic understanding of the research areas and derives implications from the research, it does not provide specific instruction as to how to implement the ideas set forth. Practitioners may bemoan this lack of "freeze-dried" material, but clearly this text lays the important foundation of knowledge about theory that should always precede practical implementation.

4 JOURNAL OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY, , Psychology and Sport Behavior By Anne Marie Bird and Bernette K. Cripe. Published 1986 by Times MirrorIMosby College Publ., Westline Industrial Drive, St. Louis, MO Reviewed by Lawrence R. Brawley, Department of Kinesiology, University of Waterloo Psychology and Sport Behavior is designed to fulfill a variety of objectives. No doubt the authors attempted to achieve all of their objectives, but they have not always succeeded. Where they have succeeded, however, future textbook writers could learn some valuable lessons from the approaches taken. In particular, the authors have tried to solve some of the problems of teaching sport psychology to undergraduate students or readers who have no introductory psychology background-problems such as maintaining the students' interest and explaining concepts in understandable ways to which students can relate. The authors encourage readers to relate to psychology through their own sport experiences. As well, their writing style is not overburdened with psychology jargon and complexity. These features make the book easy to read, and students may well pay more attention to it because of its use of everyday sport experiences, practical examples, and case studies that may encourage learning. Other good features are some of the book's pedagogical and design characteristics. Particularly useful is the idea of an organizing framework to tie together understanding about the entire human system. The authors call this the "unifying model of sport behavior." The model gets the reader to remember that the human being functions as an integrated whole in which physiological, motor, and psychological functioning are interrelated. Too often, students lose sight of this when trying to understand information from a specific field. Additional devices that are effective in presenting information are glossaries, review questions, and case studies at the end of each chapter, all of which should help enhance the students' understanding of what they have just read. These features are in contrast to texts that typically provide only a glossary at the end of the book. The authors believe this text fulfills the aims of offering comprehensive coverage and the most current thinking in the area of sport psychology. If this were the case, it would represent a major contribution to sport psychology and would be the book to serve both undergraduate and graduate students of sport science. Unfortunately, the authors' attempts to cover theory, research, and practical and scientific intervention, and simultaneously to encourage undergraduate and graduate student learning, results in a product that falls short of its mark. Several claims are not fulfilled. To begin, the topical coverage is not comprehensive. Earlier sport psychology books published for the undergraduate stu-

5 Book Reviews / 305 dent market have uniformly greater and more recent coverage than what this 1986 text has to offer (e-g., J.M. Silva & R.S. Weinberg [Eds.], Psychological Foundations of Sport, 1984). The treatment of topics is unequal. For example, topics such as aggression and the cognitive bases of motivation receive minimal attention relative to others such as observational learning and attention/attentional style. This unevenness in treatment results in a superficial view of some topics, barely sufficient for an introductory course. To suggest, as the authors do, that the book would be suitable for an introductory graduate course is stretching their claim. The text introduces the area to undergraduates. The book is divided into four sections, the first being an introduction to sport psychology, scientific inquiry, and traditional perspectives to describe sport behavior. The second section concerns arousal and anxiety in sport as well as associated intervention strategies specific to coping with and performing in arousing and anxiety-provoking sport situations. The third section presents current issues in cognitive sport psychology while the fourth section discusses what one might call group dynamics, depending on one's definition of the term. This last section deals with selected topics about the group, aggression, and leadership. Section I presents the scientific basis of sport psychology and makes a good beginning by comparing, contrasting, and explaining terms for the reader. It would be more complete, however, if some advantages and disadvantages of types of research and research settings were noted so as to complement the distinctions drawn between basiclapplied and theoreticallempirical research. The second chapter focuses on scientific perspectives and introduces the influence of behaviorism and personality research, one presumes, on sport psychology. This is a selective view of what has influenced the field. Historically, one would have to agree with the authors' presentation, but some time could have been spent considering the influences of other perspectives (e.g., social psychology and,recently, cognitive behavior modification). Most of the chapter is really devoted toward trait psychology and person- ality. Eysenck's work (e.g., The Measurement of Personality, 1976) receives half.. a page of treatment, which on second glance may have been better omitted than given such a superficial review. Martens' (1977) well-known SCAT inventory is classed as a trait measure although it is based upon the interaction type model of anxiety (state-trait) offered by Spielberger (Anxiety and Behavior, 1966). This is confusing, given some of art ens' and his colleagues' more recent work trying to tie together somatic responses with SCAT and validate the measures using peripheral indicators of arousal. It is also confusing given SCAT'S interaction paradigm classification by other texts in sport psychology. The chapter concludes with the interactionist paradigm which the author then ties to the unifying model for integration throughout the book. Thus, although Section I provides some good scientific foundations for the undergraduate, it later becomes very selective in presentation. Section I1 deals with arousal (chapter 3), anxiety (chapter 4), and interventions in sport (chapter 5). The chapter on arousal and sport behavior discusses the topics of drive theory, the inverted-u, social facilitation, variables mediating the motor performance-arousal relationship, and measurement of arousal. It concludes with examples of various findings about the relationships between motor, sport, and exercise behavior and arousal. The chapter on anxiety discusses the most commonly presented material on the anxiety and motor (sport) behavior

6 306 / Book Reviews relationships. There are some attempts to tie together anxiety-attention and performance relationships, but more of this is done later in the chapters on attention and attentional style. However, the bulk of the chapter is devoted to presenting a variety of findings about anxiety and various sports/physical activities. The chapter on intervention strategies covers a variety of procedures, basically describing those on relaxation, biofeedback, imagery, VMBR, stress inoculation, and SMT. Compared to the amount of research cited in previous chapters, much less sport research is cited relative to supporting or refuting the efficacy of these techniques in sport situations, and this is unfortunate. Although less sport research has been conducted on these techniques than on the topics covered in previous chapters, more sport intervention research has been reported in other undergraduate texts. It is also important that students being introduced to these concepts understand that interventions are not just automatically applied to everyday situations. They require tests of their effectiveness in much the same fashion as a theory requires tests of its validity. While the authors do caution the untrained individual against application without experience, this may be overlooked by well-intentioned undergraduates looking for a better way to coach or help athletes. Section III on cognitive processes begins with a chapter about attention and attentional style as related to motor performance. Most of this sixth chapter focuses on attentional style and concludes by discussing attention as it fits within the unifying model. While attentional style has received a great deal of emphasis from sport psychologists in both research and practice and therefore requires discussion, it seems the corresponding discussion of attention has been drastically shortchanged. Although the authors rightly raise questions and concerns about the validity of the attentional style measures, another basic question should be raised: Is "paying attention" to aspects of a sport skill related to individuals' self-reports on how they think they attend? The authors suggest there is almost a one-to-one relationship between ways in which people vary in their attention to stimuli-their individual differences-and individual difference responses to the personality measure of attentional style. In fact, there is no conclusive answer to this question. Recent evidence does not suggest a strong relation (e.g., Dewey, Brawley, & Allard, Does the Test of Attentionul and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) Really Assess Attention?, manuscript submitted for publication). Thus, the lesser detail to the cognitive concept of attention and relations between this and the personality construct of attentional style are weaknesses of this chapter. The next part of the cognitive processes section (chapter 7) concerns observational learning (OL). It is unclear why this issue would be any more current than a concept such as social facilitation (SF). Both areas have received less of a research focus than others over the past few years. And both areas have had new theories or issues examined recently relative to motor performances. However, in this text SF is discussed for 2 or 3 pages while OL is considered for a full chapter. The reason, one suspects, is that the authors feel the latter has a greater practical orientation, and thus they provide a good overview of theory and facts for the undergraduate. They also identify areas of OL requiring further research. Though this is not consistent in every chapter, it is effective in this one with both research (future questions) and practice (case studies) discussed.

7 Book Reviews / 307 Thus, while this chapter makes for an effective presentation, it runs counter to the objective of being contemporary. Chapter 8 in this section concerns the popular topic of imagery in sports. A variety of ideas, models, and controversies are neatly summarized and presented. The student should come away with the idea that imagery is not necessarily for everyone, either in regard to athletes' ability to apply the technique or in improvements in their performance because of it. The authors do well to emphasize that imagery requires extensive practice to increase its chances of enhancing athletic performance. But then one must question the statement that immediately follows: The authors suggest imagery has much to offer in the learning and performance of sport skills, and therefore encourage the students to apply what they have read in trying to help the sport performance of others. Following a chapter that objectively presents controversies and infers experiencelpractice as a must for use, this statement seems too liberal. Chapter 9 concerns the cognitive basis of sport motivation. Highlighted are three areas related to motivation that have been investigated in sport. While anyone writing a single introductory chapter on the topic of motivation would have to be selective, it is not clear why these particular topics were chosen and others (e.g., goal setting) excluded. Competencelintrinsic motivation, attributions to achievement outcomes, and self-efficacy are examined. Unfortunately, their treatment relative to that of topics in earlier chapters is superficial. Compared to other undergraduate sport psychology texts, there is limited discussion. The information given presents the student with a myopic view of the topics, particularly attribution theory and reattribution training. The final section of the book concerns the areas of aggression (chapter lo), sport group productivity (chapter ll), and leadership (chapter 12). The discussion of these three areas is much lighter than other topics presented earlier in the text. In absolute volume alone, the fourth section has 20 fewer pages of content than the two preceding sections. The chapter on aggression presents a selective view of behavior and ignores review chapters written by experts in sport (e.g., Husman & Silva, Silva, and Widmeyer chapters in Silva & Weinberg, 1984). Tedeschi's concept of coercive power (Aggression and the Use of Coercive Power, Journal of Social Issues, 1977, Vol. 33, pp ) could add much to sport thinking about aggression and, if included in the chapter, would have made it more contemporary. The chapter on group productivity is particularly selective. When so much of sport behavior occurs within and between groups, it is difficult to understand why this chapter's content portion is a mere 10 pages long. Certainly a variety of texts have devoted more discussion of both a practical and research nature to this topic (e.g., Gill & Carron chapters in Silva & Weinberg, 1984; Zander, Making Groups Effective, 1983). The content of the chapter is not in keeping with the text's objectives of providing up-to-date perspectives. In sum, the chapters on group productivity and aggression are the weakest in the text. Finally, chapter 12 on leadership represents a content improvement over the two preceding chapters. The first few pages review the main theories, but the latter part of the chapter is quite condensed with respect to examples of leadership and mediating variable studies. The conclusion concerns coach-athlete com-

8 308 / Book Reviews patibility and changing coach behavior. The authors are highly enthusiastic about the behavior change process; unfortunately, they don't follow through on this topic by presenting Smoll and Smith's (in Silva & Weinberg, 1984) expansion of their model. Again, this detracts from the objective of providing undergraduates with up-to-date material. In conclusion, Psychology and Sport Behavior will interest students because of its language and enthusiasm about application. The authors are to be commended for their efforts in this regard. Often our ideas obtained from basic or applied research are made so cautiously as to dilute imaginative use of what we know when athletes or coaches ask for help. At the same time, however, the question of who practices with the available knowledge is an important professional concern in the field of sport psychology. It is hoped that the authors' simplification of concepts and enthusiasm for application will not lead undergraduates to believe they are qualified practitioners or that the route to such application is easy. Unfortunately, the text is neither the timely nor comprehensive text the authors had envisioned. It can be used at the basic undergraduate level, but not at the graduate level. However, it may prove to be a good idea-generating text to help instructors plan lectures or presentations to lay people, athletes, and coaches.