Coaching-efficacy and motivation of special Olympics’ Volunteer-coaches in community and school-based programmes in Nairobi, Kenya
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Date
2015-05
Authors
Njenga, Daniel Gaita
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Special Olympics Kenya (SOK) offers physical activity programs for persons with intellectual disabilities (PWIDs) in Kenya and depends on volunteer-coaches to run these programs. Coaches-specific factors are critical determinants of coaches' effectiveness. This study assessed coaching-efficacy and motivation for volunteering. Coaching-efficacy and motivation have been shown to directly impact on athletes' performance. Special Olympics is run on volunteering, and so the need to understand volunteers' motivation. It is difficult to recruit and retain Volunteer coaches. There is dearth of knowledge on coaching-efficacy for volunteer coaches and how it relates to motivation. Using a descriptive survey design to collect information from coaches from SOK clubs and school programs in Nairobi County (N=92). CE was assessed using Coaching Efficacy Scale. While motivation for volunteering was measured using the Coaches' Motivation Questionnaire. Results showed that volunteer-coaches had highest efficacy index in character building efficacy (mean=4.31±0.59) and motivation efficacy (ME) (mean=4.22±0.57), and .had lowest in technical efficacy (TE) (4.07±0.67) and game strategy efficacy (GSE) (3.99±0.63). Findings also indicated that the coaches also showed to be driven more by intrinsic than the external needs. They had the highest scores in intrinsic regulations (4.49±0.39) and least external regulations (2.91±0.92). T-test results showed that males had higher TE than females (p=0.018). The males also had higher scores in introjected regulations than females. Other dimension of motivation were not influenced by gender. Coaches' training status influenced TE as shown by ANOVA results F (3, 78) =5.440, p=0.006 with higher TE for trained coaches than untrained coaches. However, coach training did not have an effect on motivation. Community-based coaches had a higher ME than school-based coaches (p=0.015). There were significantly higher scores from community-based coaches for intrinsic regulations (p=0.003), integrated (p<0.001) and identified regulations (p=0.025). Regression models indicated that their coaching-efficacy predicated for intrinsic, identified and integrated regulations. Implications were drawn from the results especially on the need for coach education in order to enhance coaching-efficacy, and subsequently coach motivation. Given that the majority of the coaches had less than 1 year experience yet SOK programs have been running for many years, it is imperative that programs be put in place to sustain volunteering behavior. A response to the coach-athlete ratio is required in order to address high variance between the number of athletes and of coaches in a program. SOK needs to put in place robust volunteer recruitment programs that interest new volunteers in
programs.
Description
A research thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the Requirements for the award of degree of Master of Science (leisure and recreation management) School of Applied Human Sciences, Kenyatta University. GV 711 .N52