An examination of the perception and preference of women's basketball coaches and athletes on winning and losing teams.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the perception and preferences of leadership styles among successful and unsuccessful collegiate women's basketball coaches and their athletes in the Mid-Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) and Kansas Collegiate Conference (KCAC) Conferences. Specifically this study was done to determine if successful coaches differ from unsuccessful coaches on their self perception of leadership behavior. In addition, this study attempted to determine if an athlete's preference and perception of leadership behavior differ between successful and unsuccessful teams. The participants in this study were head coaches and players from the top three and bottom three teams in the MIAA and KCAC Conferences (N = 106). All participants were current college basketball players (N = 95) and coaches (N = 11) who competed in the 1995-96 season. All data were analyzed at the p. < .05 level of significance through the use of one-way analysis of variance. Based on the results of the study, it appears that there was no significant difference between coaches of winning and losing teams on perceived leadership styles. There was also no significant difference between athletes of winning and losing teams on preferences for leadership styles of coaches. However, this study did find there was a significant difference between athletes of winning and losing teams on the perception of the respective coaches leadership styles.