Motivating and Guiding Your Students

Thursday, 22 April 2010

I've been investigating Sports Psychology recently in an effort to help me improve my own performance and help improve my coaching/teaching skills. Below is an article I think will server any coach well even though it is aimed at new or young students. I'm beginning to realise that taking the psychology of sport more seriously and understanding how it effects performance can seriously help individuals and teams improve and develop quicker.

Motivating and Guiding Your Students
Every one wants to feel skilled and valued. The best way to motivate some one is to make them feel skilled and valued. This is especially important for young/new athletes who are just learning the skills and strategies of a sport.

The key to motivating athletes is to point out their successes, encourage them to improve, and teach them needed skills. The following are strategies coaches can use to create an ideal atmosphere to motivate athletes:
1. Monitor your feedback to athletes

• Let athletes know what they do well as well as what needs improvement (e.g., good hustle, nice effort, good catch, way to be in the right place).
•  Minimize punishment or criticism – this does not mean to ignore mistakes; rather use instruction and encouragement to help athletes improve.

2. Individualise athlete feedback

• Respond to mistakes based on the athlete’s current ability. With new students, skills may vary widely. Not all athletes should be held to the same standard. Instead, expect all athletes to show effort and improvement.
• Reward athletes when you see improvement
• Reward athletes who are trying hard and who are hustling
• When giving feedback use what is referred to as the Sandwich method:
• Provide some positive feedback about the athlete
• Highlight the area you want them to improve in
• Give the athlete a solution / method to improve in this area. i.e what you want them to do
• Then provide some further good feedback and speculation of what their performance will become should they do what you've asked of them.
• This method has been proven to work incredibly well in individual based sports such as golf, tennis, boxing and athletics, simply by starting positively and ending positively.

3. Encourage teamwork.

• Use drills where athletes have to work together to meet your goals.
• Reward athletes for encouraging and helping each other.

Benefits of using these Strategies

• Athletes will be motivated to continue improving and trying hard - particularly when the Sandwich method is used.
• Athletes will be more confident as the coach points out their improvements and successes
• Team cohesion will improve
• Athletes won’t be afraid of making mistakes (which may make them tentative or lead to making mistakes or quitting altogether)
• Practices and games will be more fun
• Athletes’ skills will improve as they get more instruction