The other Side of the Medal: Development and Metric Characteristics of Negative Coaching Behavior Questionnaire (NCBQ)

Abstract

In sport, winning and losing are usually propounded as the most important criteria for the evaluation of coaches' competences. Thus, negative coaching behaviours are too often ignored, particularly if those behaviours are associated with sport success. Since existing measures for the assessment of coaches' leadership style are dominantly focused on positive aspects of coaching behaviours, the main aim of the study was to develop and validate the Negative Coaching Behaviour Questionnaire (NCBQ). An additional aim was to examine possible differences in perceptions of coaches' behaviour between athletes from individual versus team sports. The NCBQ is a 13-item inventory that assesses undesirable coach’s behaviour on three subscales, i.e. Insensitivity to Athletes’ Wellbeing, Negative Feedback, and Results Orientation. Psychometric characteristics of NCBQ (factor structure, reliability, sensitivity, convergent and divergent validity) were tested on a sample of 181 kinesiology students. The results showed that NCBQ is valid and reliable measure useful for the assessment of negative coaching behaviours in various sport-related research. As expected, athletes from team sports reported a higher frequency of negative and a lower frequency of positive coaching behaviours. In future studies, more attention should be given to exploring antecedents, correlates and consequences of different coaching behaviours.

Keywords

• leadership style
• sport
• coach
• athletes
• psychometric properties