Estonian athletes’ beliefs and attitudes regarding “old-school” coaching: a qualitative analysis

The relationship between athletes and their coaches plays an enormous part in the success of the career of the athlete. The approach to coaching should be diverse and science based. In addition to evaluating the quality of the coaching solely based on results, in recent times, also considering the subjective wellbeing, psychological wellbeing and satisfaction of sportsmen themselves has become more and more important. In the framework of theory of planned behaviour, this study aimed to explore the expectations, attitudes, and subjective norms of Estonian sportsmen regarding expectations of coaching styles. The beliefs that emerged from private interviews with sportsmen (N=12) are structured, systematized and summaries for a comprehensive qualitative review. The regarding preferring a rough coach or not varied between the participants, with most of them not choosing either side but preferring an integrated approach. The answers also differed regarding what the athletes considered as ‘rough coaching’ and whether they gave it an automatically negative definition or not. All the participants were able to bring out factors where ‘rough coaching’ could benefit the sportsmen but were also aware of the possible negative consequences. The participants were also asked to consider how rough coaching style could affect the coach themselves, both positively and negatively. The overview of the beliefs and expectations mapped by this qualitative inquiry provides an important impot for compiling a questionnaire to measure Estonian athletes’ beliefs related to coaching more extensively.