Research Title:
“The Perceived Coaching Behaviours and Motivation of Athletes for 1st Youth Olympic Games”

Purpose of the Study:

Koh, Wang, Côté & Erickson (in press) conducted a study on youth’s experience in sport in Singapore. They found that the motivation of performance athletes at the inter-school competitions varied due to pressure to perform and peer’s pressure. Therefore, having good performance results may not necessarily lead to positive sport experience and increased adaptive motivation in sport participation.

As the Youth Olympic Games is deemed to be highly competitive, it is therefore timely to examine athletes’ experience in preparation for this major international competition. Of interest are athletes’ perceptions of their coaches’ behaviours prior to the actual games. We anticipate that athletes’ experiences in YOG preparation will be a mix of positive and negative affect and their perception of their coach’s behaviours will be negative due to pressure on high quality training and the pressure to perform during the actual competition.

The Singapore Sports Council, Singapore National Olympic Council, National Institute of Education, The University of Queensland in Australia and Queen’s University in Canada have recently embarked on the above mentioned collaboration project in Singapore. The ultimate goal of the proposed study is to identify the events and circumstances that surround the knowledge acquisition of performance coaches for young adolescents, encouraging athletes to stay motivated in sports at elite level.

Please note that all information will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for research purposes. No participant will be identified by name during the study or in the dissemination of the findings.

Principal Investigator: Dr Koh Koon Teck, PESS, NIE, NTU.

Contact number: (65) 6790 3714

Procedures:

1. Identify a quiet venue to administer the survey. Ensure that the athletes and