Influence of coaches’ behaviour on Malaysian national squash athletes’ satisfaction

In the sports scene, identifying coach behaviour is a phenomenon that has frequently grabbed the attention of athletes. Coaches are often role models for athletes and can influence them to succeed. The athletes’ behaviour can directly impact the coach's behaviour, which could result in negative outcomes related to the athletes’ emotions, feelings of burnout, and satisfaction in giving their full commitment towards their sporting career. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of coaches’ behaviour on the satisfaction of Malaysian national squash athletes. Malaysian national squash athletes (n = 30) were required to complete the Coaching Behaviour Scale for Sport (CBS-S) and Athletes' Satisfaction Questionnaire (ASQ). The results of the Pearson Correlation (r) analysis revealed a significant association between physical training, planning, competition strategies, positive personal behaviour, mental preparation, and goal setting and athletes’ satisfaction. However, no significant relationship between technical skills and the coach’s negative personal behaviour with athletes’ satisfaction was discovered. It indicates that Malaysian national squash athletes were more satisfied with the coach’s physical training and planning, competition strategies, personal positive behaviour, mental preparation and goal-setting coaching behaviour rather than the two facet subscales – technical skills and negative personal rapport. The findings from this study indicated how the coaches could implement the most preferred coaching behaviour so that athletes could experience the highest level of satisfaction. Further research on examining gender differences will lead to a clearer and specific understanding of this topic in the future. Future studies to evaluate the potential of coaching behaviour for performance enhancement are warranted