Case Study: Why Female Athletes Quit

The findings of one study, Why Female Athletes Quit: Implications for Education conducted in 2000 by Stewart and Taylor, concluded there are numerous reasons why an athlete leaves a sport. Responses with the highest frequency were injury (26%), time conflicts (18%), and coaching issues (16%) and that sports ceased being fun (14%). The findings of the Stewart and Taylor study support the concept that females athletes leave their sport for a variety of reasons. Virtually the same reasons were given in an earlier study conducted by Weiss and Petlichkoff (1989) where conflict of interest, injury, lack of fun and a failure to improve were cited as the top reasons offered for quitting a sport. Additionally, the data reflects there is a direct correlation
So, it would appear that coaches who instill good morals and attitudes of good sportsmanship, fair play, and respect for others would have a positive motivational impact on young student-athletes. The study goes on to say that athletes were less likely to perceive their coach as effective in motivation and character building when there was a mismatch in sex between athlete and coach. The implications of this finding shows the importance of hiring female coaches to coach girls’ teams in relation to building effective motivation and character in female athletes.
Further, questionnaire data collected by Kavussanu et.al. (2008) revealed that on average, coaching efficacy as reported by coaches was higher than coaching effectiveness perceived by their athletes in terms of motivation. This information shows that coaches need to improve communication with their athletes, so they can become more aware their expectations. Anonymous student-athlete surveys are one way to collect information on expectations of student-athletes and which methods best motivate
The results showed that positive techniques such as immediate reward from behavior (r = .22), self-esteem (r = .28), and coach feedback (r = .25) were positively related to player motivation. On the other hand, negative techniques such as punishment from behavior (r = -.17), coach (r = -.15), and others (r = -.20) along with guilt (r = -.19) had negative effects on athlete motivation. Results of the study also showed verbal aggression to be negatively related to motivation (r = -.34, p > .01). Information from the study shows that when coaches yell at their players and berate them, they become less motivated to continue participation. There were several differences in the use of BATs based on the sex of the player and coach. Females tend to respond with higher ratings than males on the use of the positive BATs, while males tend to respond higher than females on the more negative BATs. This information suggests that males and females respond very differently to motivational techniques by coaches and that coaches should use more positive BATs when trying to motivate female athletes. Using negative BATs on female athletes may lead to an increase in cessation rates, citing coaching