Investigating Coach Feedback Effects On Athletes’ Performance And Learning In Aesthetic Sports Through The Motivational Components Of The OPTIMAL Theory For Motor Learning And The Coaching For Agency Model: A Randomised Controlled Trial - Info and Reading Options

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During adolescence, athletes navigate a sensitive phase marked by high divergence in their developmental trajectories (Mudrak et al., 2020; Mudrak & Zabrodska, 2015). As they enter the specialising years of their athletic development (Baker & Côté, 2006; Côté, 1999; Côté et al., 2003), the importance of structured, focused, and effortful engagement grows to sustain continuous successful progression. This critical step towards sports competence appears to be challenging for many youth athletes as adolescents generally reduce their participation in physical activity (Dumith et al., 2011) and a large portion of adolescent athletes drop out of sports during this developmental period (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2008; Mudrak, 2010; Wylleman et al., 2004). Coach and the coach-created motivational climate appear to be crucial factors facilitating the successful developmental transitions of youth athletes (Alvarez et al., 2012; Curran et al., 2015; Duda, 2013; Duda & Balaguer, 2007). It appears that the motivational climate created by the coach affects the ways in which athletes experience their sports participation and, in this way, their decision to maintain their sports involvement or drop out from sports (Alvarez et al., 2012; Mudrak, 2010). The feedback that athletes receive from their proximal environment has also been related to various aspects of their motor performance and motor learning, including balance, accuracy, maximum force production, speed and endurance, or movement form (Chua et al., 2018; Chua et al., 2021; Wulf et al., 2018; Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016). A majority of the reviewed research on the effects of coach-created motivational climate based their assumptions on two major theoretical frameworks – achievement goal theory (AGT) and self-determination theory (SDT) (Alvarez et al., 2012; Appleton & Duda, 2016; Duda, 2013; Duda & Balaguer, 2007). The key assumptions within these two frameworks are that the types of goals coaches endorse, and the conditions coaches create for satisfying basic human needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence significantly shape the athletes’ experience of sports participation and, subsequently, athletes’ subjective and objective outcomes. In this way, the coach-created motivational climate depends 1) on the degree to which coaches endorse goals aimed at winning and comparison with others (performance×ego) and/or goals aimed at self-improvement and comparison with previous performance (mastery×task) (AGT) and 2) on the level of autonomy and support or control coaches provide to the athletes (SDT) (Duda, 2013). Recently, Duda and her colleagues (Appleton & Duda, 2016; Duda, 2013; Duda et al., 2017; Duda & Appleton, 2016) proposed a concept of “Empowering/disempowering coaching” (EDC) that merges assumptions of both AGT and SDT frameworks, proposing that a coach-created climate should be approached as including five key dimensions, three positive (task-involving, autonomy-supportive, socially-supportive), and two negative (ego-involving, and controlling coaching). Another integrative attempt to merge SDT and other socio-cognitive approaches explaining the development of sports competence has been provided by the OPTIMAL theory (Optimising Performance through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning) (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016). Compared to the concept of EDC, which rather focuses on the more pervasive motivational climate, as well as the subjective motivational and emotional outcomes in EDC, the OPTIMAL framework investigates the effectiveness of motivational factors on objective measures such as performance or learning outcomes of motor skills across different ranges of motor skills such as balance, accuracy, maximum force production, speed and endurance, or movement form (Chua et al., 2018, 2020; Wulf et al., 2018; Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2009, 2016). From this perspective, coaches should consider general precursors of motor learning and performance to maximise the effectiveness of their approach to athletes: enhanced expectancies (EE), autonomy support (AS), and an external focus of attention (EF). Research has shown that each of these factors enhances motor performance in diverse types of motor skills (for a review, see Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016). Moreover, researchers demonstrated that combining these components has remarkable benefits for motor performance of vertical jump height (N = 36) (Chua et al., 2018). This study’s results indicate a medium effect size for the Group main effect (η_p^2 = 0.12); the Condition main effect (AS, EE, EF) had a small effect size (η_p^2 = 0.04); the Group × Block interaction effect was medium (η_p^2 = 0.09); in the Post-hoc tests, medium to large effects were observed for Block 3 (η_p^2 = 0.012) and 4 (η_p^2 = 0.16). Any association between two of these factors, such as EE and AS (Wulf et al., 2014), led to additional improvement in motor performance (overhand throw, N = 64). In the retention test, AS and EE both had a small effect size η_p^2 = 0.62; in the transfer test, AS had a medium effect size η_p^2 = 0.105, while EE had a small to medium η_p^2 = 0.081 (Wulf et al., 2014) (the authors of referred articles did not provide further/detailed measures of effect sizes). Both the EDC (Appleton & Duda, 2016; Duda, 2013) and OPTIMAL (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016) frameworks seem useful in both research and practical applications concerning adolescent athlete development. However, several conceptual, methodological, and practical limitations within each framework limit our current insights into their effectiveness and applicability. Both frameworks involve a limited number of dimensions, exploring relatively simple relationships between single variables while focusing on different types of athletes’ outcomes (subjective × objective). Evidence for the EDC primarily relies on cross-sectional questionnaire studies, with particular emphasis on subjective motivational and emotional outcomes (Duda & Appleton, 2016; Duda & Balaguer, 2007). In contrast, the OPTIMAL framework predominantly includes experimental studies, focusing on objective athlete outcomes such as motor performance and learning (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016). It can be argued that both approaches focus on various elements within a broader process, where coaches' environmental and situational conditions impact the development of athletes' sports competence. We suggest that the coach-created climate and feedback affect the athletes’ development through athletes’ sense of agency, i.e., “the sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action” (David et al., 2008, p. 524) as adolescents need to become “agents of their own learning, not just recipients of information” (Bandura, 2006, p. 10) to ensure further successful development of competence through and beyond adolescence (Mudrak & Zabrodska, 2015). To address the shortcomings of both previous frameworks, we propose a new theoretical framework, which we label “Coaching for Agency” (CfA). The CfA integrates the main assumptions of the EDC and OPTIMAL frameworks regarding the effects of coach-created climate and feedback on the development of sport competence in adolescent athletes (Laroëre et. al., in prep). We believe that such a complex framework is needed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between proximal social environment, individual athletes acting as agents of their own development, and multiple outcomes which can be seen as products but also as drivers of ongoing development towards sport competence (Mudrak et al., 2020). We introduce the main assumptions of the CfA model in Figures 1-7 (see OSF Laroëre et al., 2024). We chose aesthetic sports as a model type of sport for testing our proposed framework. Gymnastics and other aesthetic sports have a complex and particular training process, with high levels of both demands (physical and psychological) and stress (Bobo-Arce & Méndez-Rial, 2013) and to our best knowledge, there is only a limited number of studies investigating the current psychological environment and the effects of different types of coach-created feedback on these aesthetic sports athletes. The larger project, that this study is part of, aims to explore the relationships between the coach-created psychosocial environment and the outcomes of adolescent athletes, including both subjective (e.g., athletes’ engagement and burnout) and objective (e.g., motor performance) measures. Previous work focused on subjective outcomes through an online longitudinal survey investigating athletes’ engagement and burnout over time (see OSF Laroëre et al., 2024). In contrast, the current study - a randomised controlled trial (RCT) - focuses on objective outcomes, specifically examining motor performance and motor learning. This RCT builds on our earlier research and connects with it by further exploring the impact of the coach-created psychosocial environment on athletes' performance and well-being, utilising the CfA model and the OPTIMAL theory to provide a comprehensive understanding of these dynamics. The current study will consist of a series of randomised controlled trials conducted within the methodological framework of the OPTIMAL theory of motor learning extended by the assumptions of CfA. We will compare OPTIMAL-based feedback in AS vs control conditions and EE vs control conditions. In this way, we will assess the causal effects of different types of coach-created feedback based on the motivational components of OPTIMAL theory (i.e., AS and EE) on athletes’ motor performance and learning. We predict that participants under autonomy-supportive and expectancies-enhancing conditions will improve their task-related motor performance and learning compared to control conditions (see Hypotheses below).

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