The effects of head and assistant coaches' uses of humor on collegiate soccer players evaluation of their coaches.

Grisaffe, Christie ; Blom, Lindsey C. ; Burke, Kevin L. 等

Humor is a crucial part of every day life that can be a simple response to comedy, a cathartic mood-lifter, or a social vocalization that binds individuals together (Provine, 2000). Various studies have focused on the physiological and the psychological effects of humor (Lehman, Burke, Martin, Sultan, & Czech, 2001) as well as the effects of teachers' use of humor in the classroom.

Studies have examined the effectiveness of teachers who use humor (Gruner, 1966, 1967), student learning outcomes (Kaplan & Pascoe, 1977; Nussbaum, Comadena, & Holladay, 1985; Terry & Woods, 1975;), and teacher evaluations (Bryant, Comisky, Crane, & Zilimand, 1980). Furthermore, students have identified humor as an important teacher trait (Weaver & Cotrell, 1988). Additionally, humor has been seen to aid in the establishment of developing relationships (Weaver & Cotrell, 1988) and in creating an open and relaxed atmosphere (Gilliland & Mauritsen, 1971). Overall, teachers' use of humor in the classroom has positive outcomes for the students and the instructors (Burke, Peterson, & Nix, 1995). These studies have shown that teachers who use humor in their classroom are viewed by the students as very approachable, are able to develop a positive rapport with students, and seem to be evaluated highly (Neuliep, 1991).

These positive outcomes could be helpful on the playing field, as well as the classroom. Coaching is similar to teaching in that both professionals instruct, teach, and modify behaviors of individuals (Burke et al., 1995). Very little research was found on the use of humor in coaching. One of the few studies found examined college volleyball players' perceptions of their coaches' humor (Burke et al., 1995). In this study, a significant relationship between the players' perceptions of their coaches and liking the coaches was illustrated. Furthermore, volleyball players liked their coaches more if the players felt their coaches had a sense of humor. Since previous research suggests humor influences the perceptions of others, the purpose of this study was to further examine perceived use of humor by coaches and the associated coaches' likeability.

Method

Participants

Thirty-three male (N= 20) and female (N 13) Division I soccer players from a southeastern university participated in this study during the off-season. Both teams were coached by male head and assistant coaches. The average age was 19.24 years (SD = .83), and 31 of the participants were Caucasian. Participants had played soccer from 9 to 18 years and had played for the current coach an average of 1.6 years (SD = .863). Of the 33 participants, there were 18 freshmen, 11 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 1 senior.

Instruments

The three instruments used in this study consisted of a demographic questionnaire, modified version of the Coach Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ) (Rushall & Wiznak, 1985) for the head coach, and another modified version of the CEQ for the assistant coach. The CEQ has been shown to be a reliable and valid instrument (Martin & Lumsden, 1987) with content validity established by 18 competent judges (Rushall & Wiznak, 1985). During construction of the CEQ test-retest reliability for each question was established with each final question meeting the cutoff point of r .80 (Rushall & Wiznak, 1985). There were 36 questions on the modified version of the Coach Evaluation Questionnaire that measured a variety of coaching domains. Due to the previously mentioned literature indicating the importance of humor, this investigation focused on the possible interplay between humor usage and players "liking" the coach, using the three following specifically related questions: "The coach has a sense of humor," "I like the coach," and "The coach usually finds something comical, witty, or funny in many situations." Participants' responses were measured by a Likert scale of 1 -5 (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). Cronbach's alpha reliability was established at 0.8458 for the questions concerning the head coaches, and 0.6226 for the questions concerning the assistant coaches.

Procedure

The two teams were separately gathered after a routine practice session, and were asked to complete the instruments. The consent form was administered first, signed, collected, and the participants were assured the answers would be kept confidential. Then, a packet consisting of the demographic survey and the two modified Coach Evaluation Questionnaires (completed for the head and completed for the assistant coach of each team) were administered. Participants completed the forms and were thanked for their participation.

Results

Statistical Products and Service Solutions version 10.0 (SPSS) was used in the data analysis. Pearson's correlations were used to examine the overall relationship between each coaches' sense of humor and their likeability Additionally, Pearson's correlations were used to examine relationships between the coaches' sense of humor (based upon the responses to the two 'humor' questions) and their likeability (based on one question) for each gender.

The results indicated that for head coaches there was a high correlation between having a sense of humor and perceived liking (r = .731 ;p <.01). There was a moderate correlation in the overall relationship between the assistant coach having a sense of humor and liking the assistant coach (r .454; p < .01).

The correlation for women's team evaluations of their head coaches and the likeability was r = 1.0, a perfect correlation. When applied to the women's team assistant coach, there was a low correlation for liking the assistant coach, and having a sense of humor (r = .217; p> .05).

For the head coach of the men's team, there was a moderate relationship (r = .6O3; p = < .01) in liking the head coach and the head coach having a sense of humor. For the assistant coach of the men's team, there was a low to moderate relationship (r= .5 17; p <.05) between the two variables.

Perceptions of head coaches' use of humor and evaluations of likeability was significantly different between genders (z 5.786; p < .05) with women indicating a stronger association between the two variables. For assistant coaches, no significant differences were reported for gender with these two variables (z .88; p> .05).

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between players liking coaches and the coaches' uses of a sense of humor. When applied to the head coach, there was a moderate to high correlation in liking coaches and having a sense of humor. This high correlation may illustrate that the more the coaches use a sense of humor with the players, the more likely the athletes are to like coaches. Other studies have shown that coaching behaviors may influence athletes' perceptions of sport experiences (Barnett, Smoll, & Smith, 1992) where the athletes may find practice, games, and overall participation in sports more enjoyable.

The relationship between the assistant coach and the use of a sense of humor was not as strong as that of the head coach. This may be due to the secondary role that assistant coaches play within a team.

This study also examined gender differences between the two variables. For women, the relationship was perfect between humor and liking, and significantly different from men. This suggested that female athletes may have stronger preference for coaches who use sense of humor than do male athletes. As for the male athletes, there was a moderate correlation in the athletes liking the head coach and having a sense of humor. This also suggested that male athletes may appreciate a good sense of humor in the coach.

This study investigated only the association of perceptions of humor and likeability, therefore the limits of the generalizability of these results must be recognized. Since correlational analyses do not explain causation, there is a possibility that the more players liked the coaches, the more freely coaches displayed a sense of humor. Also, other variables may play a role in the use of humor and the liking of coaches such as the players' sense of humor, team morale, winning percentages, and individual satisfaction with playing time.

Future studies need to be performed investigating the possibility of the relationship between utilizing a sense of humor and the perceptions of coaches by their athletes. Other team sports should be examined, as well as individual sports such as tennis, golf, swimming, and diving. Future studies should involve larger sample sizes to improve the external validity of these types of findings. Because humor in athletics may help to offset the daily stresses in sport for coaches and athletes, more research inquiries into this area may help determine the role of humor in other sport and exercise related variables (Burke et al., 1995).

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Address Correspondence To: Dr. Kevin L. Burke, Department of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia 30460-8076. E-mail: kevburke@gasou.edu Telephone: (912) 681-5267.