A Systematic Observation of More and Less Successful High School Tennis Coaches

Transcription

1 JOURNAL OF TEACHING M PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 1988, 7, A Systematic Observation of More and Less Successful High School Tennis Coaches David B. Claxton Baylor University The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze systematically the coaching behaviors of more and less successful high school boys' tennis coaches during practice sessions. The Arizona State University Observation Instrument, consisting of 14 behavior categories, was used to compile data on nine coaches (five judged as more successful and four judged less successful, based on win records). Time sampled event recording was used to collect the data, with each coach being observed during preseasonlearly season, midseason, and late season for a total of three observations per coach. Analysis of the data showed that the more successful coaches asked a significantly greater number of questions of their players than did the less successful coaches. The tennis coaches demonstrated more instructional behaviors than any other behavior but spent more intervals in the Other category than in any other behavioral category. Other, Management, and Silence accounted for almost 75 % of all intervals. Research into the improvement of teaching was going on long before Flanders began systematic analysis of teaching behavior in Siedentop (1983) states that the turning point for teaching research-from failure to success-was the development of systematic observational strategies for viewing real teachers with real students. This is important because teachers make a difference in their students (Gage, 1985). Systematic observation has also improved teaching on the field and playing court. In fact, it may be more meaningful in the gym than in the classroom because of the results of competition which can be seen in athletic settings. In competitive situations, teaching (coaching) behaviors can be related to teaching (coaching) outcomes in the form of wins and losses. It was for this reason that Tharp and Gallimore (1976) conducted a study of John Wooden, basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins. They contended that while classroom teachers had "no national competition which ruthlessly ranks teachers by their ability to bring out Request reprints from David B. Claxton, Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Baylor University, Waco, TX

2 HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS COACHES 303 the best in their students," they had been able to identify Wooden as outstanding because of his successful basketball record. Tharp and Gallimore (1976) concluded that Wooden used a high percentage of instructional behaviors (75 % contained some form of instruction) and indicated that his excellent instruction positively affected his team's performance. Instruction was found to be the predominant behavior in a number of coaching studies which followed. A successful major university football coach (Langsdorf, 1979), a winning female field hockey coach (Dodds & Rife, 1981), a successful high school basketball coach (Williams, 1978), and a group of winning high school football coaches (Lacy & Darst, 1985) were all found to have instruction as their predominant coaching behavior. Other behaviors varied between the successful coaches. Wooden, for instance, praised much less than did the field hockey coach (6.9 % to %, respectively). Other studies compared behaviors of more and less successful coaches. Mancini and Avery (1980) compared interaction patterns of effective and less effective coaches. Among their conclusions were that effective coaches used more verbal and nonverbal acceptance and praise than did less effective coaches. Model (1983), however, concluded from a study of winning and nonwinning high school football coaches that the nonwinning coaches had a greater Praise to Scold ratio than did the winning coaches. The present study had a twofold purpose. Because of the scarcity of behavioral data which have been collected on the coaching of individual sports, tennis in particular, this study was intended to establish a data base for further research into this area. Second, this study identified the practice-field behaviors of groups of more and less successful high school boys' tennis coaches. An instrument similar to that in the Wooden study was used to gather the data to investigate both of these areas. Subjects Method A comparison of studies of high school football coaches failed to show significant differences in coaching behaviors of more and less successful coaches (Model 1983). The criterion for defining more successful coaches was a career winning record of 60% or higher. The losing coaches in the comparison had career records below 50%. To further dichotomize the groups, in the hope of finding significant differences between the groups, the present study changed the criteria for determining more and less successful coaches. More successful coaches were those whose teams had career records of at least 70 % wins, and had won at least 70 % of their matches over the 3 years prior to the study. Less successful coaches had winlloss records of under 50% lifetime and for the 3 years prior to the study. A review of the eligible high school boys' tennis coaches in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area discovered five coaches who met the criteria for more successful and four who met the criteria for less successful coaches. At the conclusion of the season during which the study was conducted, the winlloss record was determined for each team.

3 CLAXTON Table 1 Subjects Tennis coaches More successful Less successful (n = 5) (n = 4) Years as head coach WIL record, career (77.7%) (40.6%) WIL record, last 3 years (79.7%) ( ) WIL record, year of study (51.4%) (19.2%) As shown in Table 1, the entire group that was studied had a less than average year that season, but the more successful coaches were still much more successful than their less successful counterparts. Observation Instrument The Arizona State University Observation Instrument (ASUOI), developed by Lacy and Darst (1984), was used to observe the coaches. The instrument's 14 categories and key definitions, some unique to tennis, are as follows: 1. Preinstruction: Instruction given before the athlete's behavior takes place. Example: "Make your toss higher on this serve"; 2. Concurrent Instruction: Given while the athlete behavior is in progress. Example: (As the player is in a groundstroke rally) "racket back"; 3. Postinstruction: Feedback. Example: "You didn't bend your knees"; 4. Questioning: Example: "Why did you hit that shot down the line?"; 5. Manual Manipulation: The coach physically positions a body part of a player; 6. Positive Modeling: The coach demonstrates the correct performance of a skill; 7. Negative Modeling: The coach demonstrates the incorrect performance of a skill-usually showing the player what he did wrong; 8. First Name: Use of a player's first name or nickname when speaking to him; 9. Hustle: Verbal statements to intensify behavior; 10. Praise: Verbal compliments or encouragements; 1 1. Scold: Verbal statements of displeasure; 12. Management: Verbal and physical managerial behaviors. Examples: "Line up for the next drill," picking up tennis balls, fixing tennis nets, etc.); 13. Silence: Silently watching players, usually preparatory to giving feedback. If the coach was silently distracted or otherwise uninvolved, Other would have been recorded; 14. Other: Any coach behavior other than those previously listed including playing tennis with the team, talking to parents or other students, absence from the court, or similar noncoaching behavior.

4 HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS COACHES 305 Data Collection The nine coaches were observed three times each-pre or early season, midseason, and late season. Each observation consisted of three 10-minute periods spaced 10 minutes apart for a total of 90 minutes of observation per coach. The data were recorded live by trained observers standing on or near enough to the court to accurately record the coach's behaviors. Live behavior recording has been shown to be consistent with both audio and videotaped observational data (Lacy & Lollar, 1987). Time sampled event recording (Rushall, 1977) was used to gather the data. Every occurrence of any of the 14 behaviors on the Arizona State University Observation Instrument, as well as any change in behavior, was recorded. Any behavior lasting longer than 5 seconds was recorded again, but marked with a dash (-) to indicate it was a continuation of a previous behavior rather than a new one. This allowed the data to be analyzed in light of both specific events (event recording) and time intervals spent in each behavior category (interval recording). Five Interobserver Agreement checks were conducted during the study, producing agreements of at least 80 % on all occasions. This is the level of agreement deemed acceptable for Interobserver Agreement in observational research (Siedentop, 1983). Data Analysis To best describe the coaching behaviors of the tennis coaches and for comparison of this study to other studies, each behavior category was computed into both rate per minute and percent of the total behaviors. Because of the small number of coaches observed, nonparametric statistical analysis was used to compare differences in behavior between the groups. For analysis of the event recording data, the Mann-Whitney Test (Minium, 1978) was used to compare average percentages of the exhibited behaviors for each category between the more and less successful coaches. For interval recording analysis, the percentage of all intervals for each behavior was compared for each category between the groups. The tests were two-tailed, with a.05 level of significance. Results A total of 4,031 discrete behaviors and 10,282 observation intervals were recorded in the 810 minutes of observation. The 4,031 events are depicted by rates per minute (RPM) and by percentages in Table 2. Events of Preinstruction, Concurrent Instruction, and Postinstruction combined to account for 20.1 % of all behaviors, making Instruction the largest single category. Almost 15% of all behaviors were Other behaviors, and 13.5 % were Management. Silence accounted for 13 % of the behavioral events. Together, the categories Other, Management, and Silence made up 41.5 % of all observed behaviors. When viewed from an interval recording viewpoint, Instruction was much less a factor for the tennis coaches. The combined categories of Preinstruction, Concurrent Instruction, and Postinstruction made up only 9.9% of all the recorded intervals. Other was the most frequently used behavior (43.1 %), followed by Silence (22.0%), then Instruction (9.9%) and Management (9.8%). No other category made up as much as 4% of the total intervals. Together the categories Other, Silence, and Management made up 74.9 % of all intervals (see Table 3).

5 CLAXTON Table 2 Event Recording Results of the Arizona State University Observation Instrument for all Coaches Behavior Frequency RPM % of Total Preinstruction Concurrent instruction Postinstruction Questioning Manual manipulation Positive modeling Negative modeling First name use Hustle Praise Scold Management Silence Other Table 3 Interval Recording Results of the Arizona State University Observation Instrument for all Coaches Behavior Intervals 010 of Total Preinstruction Concurrent instruction Postinstruction Questioning Manual manipulation Positive modeling Negative modeling First name use Hustle Praise Scold Management Silence Other Total

6 HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS COACHES 307 Results of event recording analysis showed that while more and less successful coaches were pretty similar in their use of most categories, less successful coaches gave Postinstruction more than twice as often and praised almost twice as much as their more successful counterparts. They also exhibited fewer Other behaviors, and questioned less than half as often as the more successful coaches. Of those differences, however, only Questioning was significant at the.05 level (see Table 4). Interval recording shows much the same thing, with two interesting exceptions. While event recording showed that the more successful coaches exhibited more Silence and Management behaviors, they spent fewer intervals in these behaviors (and therefore less time) than did the less successful coaches. Less successful coaches spent more intervals in Instruction, Management, and Praise than did the more successful coaches, but only Questioning, which was used more than twice as often by the more successful coaches, was significant at the.05 level of confidence (see Table 5). Discussion Prior to this study, no research had systematically observed and analyzed the coaching behaviors used in high school boys' tennis practice. A data base has now been established. Boys' high school tennis coaches in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area were positive toward their players. They did, however, Table 4 Mann-Whitney Scores of Event Recording for More and Less Successful High School Tennis Coaches Behavior More Less RPM 010 RPM 010 P Preinstruction Concurrent instruction Postinstruction Questioning Manual manipulation Positive modeling Negative modeling First name use Hustle Praise Scold Management Silence Other *Significant at the.05 level.

7 CLAXTON Table 5 Mann-Whitney Scores of Event Recording Data for More and Less Successful High School Tennis Coaches More Less Behavior intervals # Yo # 010 P Preinstruction Concurrent instruction Postinstruction Questioning Manual manipulation Positive modeling Negative modeling First name use Hustle Praise Scold Management Silence Other 'Significant at the.05 level spend a good deal of time in Management, Silence, and Other behaviors, which are not usually recognized as productive teaching strategies. Consistent with several other studies of coaching behaviors used in team sports, Instruction was the most often exhibited behavior in terms of event recording. However, the rate of instruction (.99 instructions per minute for the tennis coaches) was lower than that found in several similar studies of team & Rife, 1981; Lacy & Darst, 1985; Langsdorf, 1979; Tharp & Gallimore, 1976). This amount of instruction was similar to that reported in a study of a successful high school basketball coach (Williams, 1978). Interestingly, the less successful tennis coaches instructed more than did the more successful tennis coaches. Other differences also appeared in the comparison of more successful to less successful tennis coaches. Praise, which is often considered a tool of "good" coaches, was used more by the less successful coaches in this study than by the more successful coaches. Model (1983), in his comparison of winning and nonwinning high school football coaches, found the same to be true: the nonwinning coaches used more praise. It should be noted that neither study determined the appropriateness of the praise. Questioning was the only category that showed a statistically significant difference between the more and less successful tennis coaches. It was significant in both the event and the interval recording data. Questioning has been discussed as a valid teaching strategy in many texts, but its value in coaching may have not yet been realized. More study needs to be made of questioning as a valuable coaching strategy.

8 HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS COACHES 309 Because the tennis coaches in this study spent a great deal of time in Silence, Management, and Other behaviors, the first impression may be to conclude that they were off-task much of the time. But Rushall (1980) has shown that coaches of different sports use different coaching behaviors. Before these tennis coaches are written off as not doing their jobs, more study of tennis coaching behaviors is needed. It may be that tennis players benefit most when they are given time to practice rather than having to stop frequently to listen to instructions. The Other category should be viewed very carefully in subsequent tennis studies because coaches are involved in it for so much time during tennis practice. Indeed, this study concluded that "Other" accounted for almost twice as many behavior intervals as the next most frequently used behavior category. At first look, this might throw some doubt on the merit of the study. But because Other includes no behavior that could be recognized as having any direct impact on a tennis player, the noninterference of the coach while engaged in Other is its significance. Further study into coaching behaviors will continue. As various sports are analyzed, important differences in appropriate coaching behaviors among the different sports are sure to continue emerging. Coaching research can lead to better coaching, and may contribute to better teaching as well. But if we only get better coaches from our work, it will still be worth the effort. References Dodds, P., & Rife, F. (1981). A descriptive-analytic study of the practicejield behavior of a winning female coach. Unpublished manuscript. Flanders, N. (1970). Analyzing teaching behavior. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Gage, N.L. (1985). Hard gains in the soft sciences: The case ofpedagogy. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa's Center on Evaluation, Development and Research. Lacy, A.C., & Darst, P.D. (1984). The evolution of a systematic observation instrument. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 3, Lacy, A.C., & Darst, P.D. (1985). Systematic observation of behaviors of winning high school head football coaches. Jouml of Teaching in Physical Education, 4, Lacy, A.C., & Lollar, J. (1987, April). Effects of three systematic observation data collection procedures on teaching behaviors of college physical education instructors. Paper presented at the AAHPERD convention, Las Vegas, NV. Langsdorf, E.V. (1979). A systematic observation of football coaching behavior in a major university environment (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, 1979). Dissertation Abstracts International, 40, 4473A. Mancini, V.H., & Avery, D.E. (1980, April). Interaction patterns of effective and less effective coaches. Paper presented at the AAHPERD convention, Detroit, MI. Minium, E.W. (1978). Statistical reasoning in psychology and education (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Model, R.L. (1983). Coaching behaviors of non-winning high school football coaches in Arizona (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, 1983). Dissertation Abstracts Zntenurtional, 44, 703A. Rushall, B.S. (1977). Two observation schedules for sporting and physical education environments. Canadian Journal of Applied Sport Sciences, 2, Rushall, B.S. (1980, April). Coaching styles: Apreliminary investigation. Paper presented at the AAHPERD convention, Detroit, MI.

9 310 CLAXTON Siedentop, D. (1983). Developing teaching skills in physical education (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield. Tharp, R.G., & Gallimore, R. (1976). What a coach can teach a teacher. Psychology Today, 9, Williams, J.K. (1978). A behavioral analysis of a successful high school basketball coach. Unpublished master's thesis, Arizona State University, Tempe. Acknowledgments This article is the result of a doctoral dissertation which was a part of the author's requirements for the EdD degree at Arizona State University. The author gratefully acknowledges his students at Grand Canyon College who assisted with the collection of the data for this study, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a draft of this article.