PLAYER MOTIVATION + OPTIMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

                                     

These are notes taken from a 3 part article series from UK Senior Coach Developer who has a lot of great articles here.

Plenty of super takeaways here so make your self comfortable.

• The self determination theory (SDT) is made up of autonomy (a sense of control over your own life/volition), competence (being effective/skilful) and relatedness (to feel connected/cared for by others) which can be enhanced by being satisfied by 1 of these categories but is optimised through all 3
• We are inherently driven towards being creative/curious while seeking any opportunites to satisfy our needs, to be the masters of our own destiny and to be effective and feel connected
• Amotivation comes from not thinking the outcome is valued (relatedness), not perceiving the outcome as being in our control (autonomy) or not being perceived as attainable (competence)
• Self determined behaviour means you do something for the shear joy of it
• Intrinsic motivation (which comes from within) and intrinsic behaviour regulation (the regulation of your own behaviour and keepiong it under control whether you act on the motivation to engage or not) and intrinsic focus of casuality (you believe that you are the cause and therefore in control of the outcomes of your behaviour)
• Coaches have huge control over the learning environment and how it is experienced and players need supportive learning environments
• Autonomy is the most important as it provides the most options but is not always attained if the coach can’t provide it
• A coach’s autonomy supportive behaviours directly influence the players perception of competence, autonomy and relatedness so provide choice within team structure via specific rules and limits, provide rationale for tasks and limits, acknowledge any negative feelings, provide opportunites to take initiatives and to work indepedently, provide non-controlling competence feedback, use non-controlling language and avoid conflicting behaviours and use competition and rewards wisely to promote a mastery rather than ego involvement (promote achievement)
• Giving feedback after good performances is way better then feedback after poor performances
• If they can’t do the movement pattern at all then adjust/change the constraints (task/environment/player) rather then giving negative feedback as the feedback you give can influence the players expectations of the learning process and how malleable they perceive their performance to be (don’t like wet weather, close checking defenders etc)
• To create objective feedback create opportunites to self check
• Don’t use controlling feedback (those kicks were good, like they should be) and avoid should, must, have to, I would expect, as you should have etc as they are all guilt-inducing criticisms and emotionally laden statements that could be seen as threatening
• Giving rewards for everything can result in thinking nothing is worth doing for it’s own sake but the detrimental effects of rewards in undermining autonomy/reducing intrinsic motivation is far greater in children than adults
• A mastery climate encourages improvement of their own skills and success is judged by changes in their own performance and is hugely influenced by expectations of learning and future competence as well as being supported by goal setting
• Providing needs-supportive coaching, particularly autonomy support, can result in far better learning as it changes the way we learn
• A learner-centered focus considers task constraints (technical/tactical), environment and nuances (motivational etc) of the player performing it
• Individualisation is most effective when the learner gets to decide how and what to individualise resulting in increases in motivation and skill acquisition via more focused decision making, increased overall effort, optimal levels of challenge, reward through levels of competence, increased relationship satiusfaction with coaches, increased perceived needs support and increases in perceived needs satisfaction
• The best way to implement this as a coach is to let the player choose their own level of skill difficulty or practice schedule challenge (self pacing) but the coach also has the responsiblility to ensure that the range of tasks/levels are appropriate, well structured and have the opportunity for progression to ensure learners have the information they need and the skill level necessary, to make their decisions