IMPACT OF COACHING STYLE ON TEAM COHESION AND MOTIVATION AMONG BASKETBALL PLAYERS

Abstract

Coaching style is widely recognised as one of the most influential psychosocial factors shaping athlete behaviour, collective team functioning, and motivational climate in competitive sports. This study examined the impact of coaching style on team cohesion and motivation among basketball players and compared these variables across gender. A total of 50 basketball players — 25 male and 25 female — aged 14 to 25 years were selected through purposive sampling from Mount St. Mary's School, Delhi, and associated sports academies. Three internationally validated instruments were used: the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS; Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980) to assess perceived coaching behaviour, the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron et al., 1985) for team cohesion, and the Sport Motivation Scale-II (SMS-II; Pelletier et al., 2013) for motivational orientation. Data were analysed using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation and independent samples t-tests at a 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that basketball players generally perceived moderate-to-positive coaching behaviour (M = 154.62 ± 16.48) and demonstrated satisfactory team cohesion (M = 126.38 ± 14.21) and motivation (M = 98.74 ± 11.62). Coaching style correlated positively with both team cohesion (r = 0.58, p < 0.05) and motivation (r = 0.63, p < 0.05). Female players scored significantly higher than males on all three variables (all p < 0.05). These findings confirm that supportive, democratic coaching behaviour strengthens interpersonal unity and psychological engagement in basketball. Practical implications for coaches, sports psychologists, and sports organisations are discussed