Analyzing Coaches' Behaviors in the Relationship Between Motivational Climate and Performance Satisfaction Among Table Tennis Athletes

Introduction

Coaches occupy a central position in organized sport. Their role is not limited to technical instruction, tactical planning, and competition management; it also involves shaping the interpersonal, motivational, and emotional environment in which athletes learn, compete, and evaluate their own performance. In youth sport, this role is particularly important because adolescent athletes are still developing their identity, confidence, self-regulation, and understanding of achievement. A coach can therefore act as a technical instructor, behavioral model, social supporter, and psychological regulator at the same time. This multidimensional influence is consistent with major approaches in sport psychology that link coaching behavior to motivation, athlete development, well-being, and sport persistence (Horn, 2008; Jowett, 2007; Smith, Smoll, & Hunt, 1977).

Motivational climate is one of the main mechanisms through which coaches influence athletes. Achievement goal theory distinguishes between task-involving and ego-involving climates (Ames, 1992; Nicholls, 1984, 1989). A task-involving climate emphasizes effort, mastery, learning from mistakes, cooperation, and personal improvement. An ego-involving climate emphasizes outperforming others, comparison, normative success, and punishment or criticism after mistakes. In youth sport, these climates may influence whether athletes interpret training as a developmental process or as a high-pressure context where mistakes threaten self-worth. Coach-created motivational climates are therefore relevant to athletes' persistence, enjoyment, competence beliefs, and satisfaction with performance (Duda & Balaguer, 2007; Keegan et al., 2009; Newton, Duda, & Yin, 2000).

Self-determination theory provides a complementary explanation of why coaching behaviors can support or undermine athlete motivation. According to this theory, high-quality motivation is more likely when the social environment supports three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017). Coaches support autonomy when they provide rationale, acknowledge athletes' perspectives, and create meaningful involvement. They support competence when they provide constructive feedback, appropriate challenges, and opportunities for mastery. They support relatedness when they show care, respect, and emotional availability. Conversely, controlling communication, excessive pressure, punishment, and dismissive behavior may frustrate these needs and weaken intrinsic motivation (Bartholomew et al., 2009; Mageau & Vallerand, 2003; Ntoumanis, 2001).

The coach-athlete relationship has also been identified as a key interpersonal context in sport. Jowett and colleagues emphasized closeness, commitment, complementarity, and co-orientation as central features of effective coach-athlete relationships (Jowett, 2007; Jowett & Cockerill, 2003). These elements are especially relevant in technically demanding sports such as table tennis, where the athlete often depends on the coach for rapid feedback, tactical interpretation, emotional stabilization, and long-term planning. Because table tennis requires concentration, perceptual speed, technical precision, and repeated adjustment to opponents, athletes' satisfaction with performance may depend not only on competitive results but also on whether the coach creates a learning climate in which errors are interpreted constructively.

Leadership style is another important component of coaching behavior. Classical research on coaching behavior has shown that instruction, reinforcement, mistake-contingent responses, punishment, and general communication patterns shape athletes' psychological responses to sport (Smith et al., 1977; Smith, Smoll, & Cumming, 2007). Contemporary coaching science suggests that effective leadership is often adaptive rather than fixed. Some athletes may need clear structure and direct instruction, whereas more experienced athletes may benefit from participatory decision-making and autonomy-supportive guidance. The challenge for coaches is to balance discipline and support, authority and autonomy, and competitive goals with psychological development.

Goal setting is also closely connected to motivational climate and performance satisfaction. Goal-setting theory indicates that clear, specific, and meaningful goals can direct attention, regulate effort, and sustain persistence (Locke & Latham, 2002). In sport, however, the motivational meaning of goals depends on how they are framed. Process and mastery goals may encourage learning and confidence, whereas exclusive emphasis on outcome goals may intensify pressure and comparison. Therefore, goal setting in youth sport must be interpreted within the wider climate created by the coach. A shared goal can strengthen team cohesion, but a poorly framed goal can create fear of failure or excessive outcome dependence.

Although research on motivation and coaching is extensive, less is known about how table tennis coaches and athletes describe the lived experience of coaching behavior in relation to motivational climate and performance satisfaction. The individual and technical nature of table tennis makes this context important. Athletes may work closely with their coaches, receive immediate corrective feedback, and experience frequent performance evaluation. These conditions make the coach's philosophy, feedback style, emotional support, and goal-setting practices highly visible to athletes. The present study therefore aimed to analyze coaches' behaviors in the relationship between motivational climate and performance satisfaction among table tennis athletes. It focused on two questions: (a) how do coaches describe their own behaviors, values, leadership, motivational climate, and goal-setting practices? and (b) how do athletes experience these behaviors in relation to performance climate, skill development, motivation, and satisfaction?

Materials and Methods

Research Design

This study used a qualitative phenomenological design. Phenomenology is suitable when the research aim is to understand how participants experience and interpret a phenomenon in their own social and practical context (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). In this study, the phenomenon was coaches' behavior in relation to motivational climate and performance satisfaction among table tennis athletes. The approach allowed the researchers to move beyond predetermined variables and examine how coaching behavior was experienced by both coaches and athletes.

The study was positioned as an interpretive phenomenological inquiry rather than a purely descriptive account. The purpose was not to test causal relations between coaching behavior and performance satisfaction, but to interpret how coaches and athletes made sense of these relations in everyday table tennis practice.

The interpretation is therefore presented as a qualitative, context-bound account rather than as a statistically generalizable model. This framing is important because the study sought depth of meaning across coaches' and athletes' accounts rather than population-level prediction.

The analysis was informed by reflexive thematic analysis. This approach is appropriate for identifying both explicit and latent meanings in qualitative data and for organizing complex interview material into themes that reflect patterned meanings across accounts (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019, 2021). The researchers treated theme development as an interpretive process rather than a mechanical coding exercise. This was important because coaching behavior involves relational, ethical, motivational, and developmental meanings that may not be captured by simple frequency counts.

Participants and Sampling

The participants included seven table tennis coaches and 25 developing table tennis athletes. The athletes were between 14 and 18 years old, and the coaches were between 30 and 40 years old. Participants were selected through snowball sampling because the study required access to individuals with direct experience of table tennis training environments and coach-athlete interaction. The inclusion of both coaches and athletes allowed the study to compare two perspectives: the coaches' accounts of their own philosophy and practices, and the athletes' accounts of how these behaviors were experienced in daily training and competition.

The sample size was judged adequate on the basis of qualitative information power: the sample was specific to table tennis, included two complementary participant groups, and produced repeated meaning patterns across coaches' and athletes' accounts. Recruitment was stopped when additional accounts no longer produced substantially new overarching themes. This saturation judgment was made at the level of theme development rather than at the level of simple code frequency.

As shown in Table 1, the sample included both coaches and athletes, which supported a two-sided interpretation of coaching behavior and motivational climate.

Data Collection

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Initial access was obtained through table tennis clubs, after which eligible coaches and athletes were invited to participate. Participants were informed about the purpose of the study, the voluntary nature of participation, and the confidentiality of responses. Written informed consent was obtained before the interviews. The interview guide addressed coaching philosophy, feedback, emotional support, leadership behavior, motivational climate, goal setting, perceived performance satisfaction, and interpretations of success and failure.

The interviews were conducted as participant-centered conversations guided by a common interview schedule. Coaches and athletes were asked to describe concrete examples of feedback, discipline, emotional support, goal setting, and responses to mistakes during training or competition. Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and anonymized before analysis. Because detailed metadata on exact interview duration, club location, and competition level were not systematically available in the source records, these elements are reported as limitations rather than reconstructed retrospectively.

Data Analysis and Trustworthiness

Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and read repeatedly to support immersion in the data. Reflexive thematic analysis followed Braun and Clarke's six-phase logic: familiarization with transcripts, generation of initial codes, construction of candidate themes, review of themes against the dataset, definition and naming of themes, and production of the analytic narrative. Coding was conducted line by line at first and then refined into broader interpretive categories through comparison across coach and athlete accounts.

Trustworthiness was addressed through four strategies. Credibility was supported by prolonged engagement with transcripts and comparison of coaches' and athletes' perspectives. Dependability was strengthened through an audit trail of codes, theme labels, and analytic memos. Confirmability was addressed through reflexive memo writing about the researchers' assumptions regarding coaching behavior. Transferability was supported by providing contextual details about participants, sport setting, themes, and illustrative quotations. These criteria align with established standards for qualitative rigor and quality reporting (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Sparkes & Smith, 2014; Tracy, 2010).

Formal member checking was not conducted; therefore, the findings represent the researchers' interpretive construction of participants' accounts rather than a participant-validated consensus statement. This point is acknowledged as a methodological limitation.

Results

The findings were organized into two main sections: coaches' lived experiences and athletes' lived experiences. From the coaches' perspective, five overarching themes were identified: coaching philosophy, social support behavior, leadership style, motivational climate, and goal setting. From the athletes' perspective, four overarching themes were extracted: coaches' philosophy from the athletes' viewpoint, performance climate, skill climate, and goal setting. Table 2 summarizes the main themes and organizing themes from coaches' accounts, and Table 3 summarizes the corresponding themes from athletes' accounts.

Coaches' Perspective

Coaching philosophy was the first overarching theme. Coaches described their philosophy as the set of values and principles that guided their work with athletes. This included responsibility, commitment, progress, discipline, and the belief that sport can shape personality and social behavior. Coaches did not describe their role only as correcting technique. Instead, they viewed coaching as a process of guiding athletes' behavior, values, and long-term development. This theme provided the interpretive foundation for the other coaching behaviors.

Social support behavior was the second theme. Coaches emphasized the importance of positive feedback, emotional support, and progress evaluation. Feedback was not interpreted merely as correction; it was also used to recognize effort, reduce anxiety, and help athletes remain committed after mistakes. Emotional support was especially relevant in moments of failure, pressure, or personal difficulty. This theme shows that coaches perceived motivation as partly relational: athletes were expected to persist more effectively when they felt supported and understood.

Leadership style was the third theme. Coaches described educational, authoritarian, and democratic behaviors. Some coaches believed that strict structure and direct instruction were necessary for younger or less experienced athletes. At the same time, democratic behaviors were valued when athletes had sufficient experience to participate in decisions. This indicates that coaches saw effective leadership as situational rather than fixed. The central challenge was balancing discipline with autonomy and ensuring that leadership practices matched athletes' developmental stage.

Motivational climate was the fourth theme. Coaches distinguished between task-oriented and result-oriented climates. A task-oriented climate emphasized effort, learning, mastery, and progress, whereas a result-oriented climate emphasized winning and competitive outcomes. Some coaches described a shift in their own practice from excessive outcome emphasis toward more effort-based feedback and learning-centered motivation. This shift is important because it suggests that coaching behavior can become more reflective through experience and education.

Goal setting was the fifth theme. Coaches used goals to structure training, clarify expectations, and guide technical and psychological development. Team goals were associated with cohesion and shared direction, while personal goals were linked to individualized learning. Coaches believed that explaining the purpose of goals before training increased athletes' understanding and commitment. Goal setting therefore functioned as both an educational tool and a motivational strategy.

Athletes' Perspective

From the athletes' perspective, coaches' philosophy was experienced as a practical framework that shaped daily expectations. Athletes valued coaches who had clear principles, ethical behavior, and consistent standards. When athletes understood what their coach expected, they reported greater clarity about how to contribute to team goals. This theme shows that coaching philosophy becomes meaningful to athletes when it is translated into consistent behavior.

Performance climate referred to the atmosphere in which athletes trained, interacted, and competed. Athletes described cooperation, encouragement, and mutual support as important for motivation and morale. Performance satisfaction was therefore not based only on individual achievement. It was also related to the quality of the team environment and the extent to which athletes felt psychologically supported during training.

Skill climate referred to an environment focused on learning and improvement. Athletes valued coaches who helped them identify strengths and weaknesses and who interpreted competition as an opportunity to learn. In this climate, mistakes were not simply failures but information for future practice. Such interpretations are central to mastery-oriented coaching because they reduce fear of failure and sustain effort after setbacks.

Goal setting from the athletes' viewpoint included both task-oriented and ego-oriented meanings. Some athletes focused on improving skills and learning from experience, whereas others expressed outcome goals such as reaching national competitions or winning first place. These findings suggest that outcome goals were not necessarily negative. Their motivational effect depended on whether the coach framed them within support, learning, and realistic progress or within pressure and comparison.

Illustrative Quotations

Representative quotations were added to increase transparency and allow readers to evaluate the connection between the interview material and the generated themes. Quotations were translated into English and lightly edited for clarity while preserving the original meaning.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to analyze coaches' behaviors in the relationship between motivational climate and performance satisfaction among table tennis athletes. The findings indicate that coaching behavior is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes philosophy, social support, leadership style, motivational climate, and goal setting. These dimensions were not independent categories; rather, they interacted to shape how athletes understood training, interpreted mistakes, responded to pressure, and evaluated their own performance. This interpretation is consistent with sport psychology models that describe coaching as a social-contextual process influencing athlete motivation and well-being (Duda & Balaguer, 2007; Mageau & Vallerand, 2003; Roberts, 2012).

The first major contribution of the study concerns coaching philosophy. Coaches described philosophy as a system of values, responsibilities, and beliefs about athlete development. Athletes, in turn, experienced coaching philosophy through clear expectations, ethical behavior, discipline, and value formation. This supports the view that coaching philosophy is not merely an abstract statement but a practical framework that becomes visible through daily interpersonal behavior. The finding aligns with research on the coach-athlete relationship, which shows that trust, commitment, complementarity, and shared understanding are central to athlete satisfaction and development (Jowett, 2007; Jowett & Cockerill, 2003).

Social support behavior was also central. Coaches reported that positive feedback and emotional support were important for maintaining motivation, while athletes emphasized encouragement, cooperation, and psychological security. This result is consistent with self-determination theory, according to which relatedness and competence support are necessary conditions for high-quality motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017). In practical terms, feedback that recognizes effort and progress can support competence, while emotional support can strengthen relatedness. Conversely, feedback that is purely critical or punitive may undermine motivation by making athletes interpret mistakes as threats to self-worth (Bartholomew et al., 2009; Smith et al., 2007).

Leadership style emerged as a complex and context-dependent finding. Coaches recognized both directive and democratic styles. Directive leadership was sometimes regarded as necessary for discipline and early skill acquisition, while democratic leadership was associated with autonomy and maturity. This supports the idea that coaching effectiveness depends on adaptive leadership rather than adherence to one rigid style. From a self-determination perspective, structure is not necessarily harmful; it can support competence when combined with rationale, respect, and autonomy-supportive communication (Mageau & Vallerand, 2003). However, when structure becomes controlling, it may frustrate autonomy and reduce intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

The motivational climate findings are consistent with achievement goal theory. Coaches and athletes both distinguished, implicitly or explicitly, between climates focused on effort and learning and climates focused on results and comparison. Task-oriented climates were linked to effort, improvement, and long-term development, whereas excessive result emphasis was associated with pressure and potential reduction in satisfaction. These findings correspond with the distinction between task-involving and ego-involving climates (Ames, 1992; Nicholls, 1984, 1989) and with empirical work showing that coach-created motivational climates influence athletes' motivation, enjoyment, and persistence (Keegan et al., 2009; Newton et al., 2000).

Goal setting was identified as both a coaching strategy and an athlete experience. Coaches used goals to organize learning, direct attention, and build commitment. Athletes experienced goals as either task-oriented or outcome-oriented. This finding supports goal-setting theory, which argues that specific and meaningful goals can guide effort and persistence (Locke & Latham, 2002). However, the motivational effect of goal setting depends on the surrounding climate. A mastery goal can be undermined if the coach constantly compares athletes, while an outcome goal can remain constructive if framed as part of personal progress and supported learning. Thus, coach education should not teach goal setting as a technical procedure alone, but as a motivational practice embedded in interpersonal behavior.

The table tennis context adds further significance to these findings. Table tennis requires rapid perception, technical precision, tactical adaptation, and emotional control. Because performance errors are frequent and visible, the coach's response to mistakes can strongly shape athletes' interpretation of failure. A coach who treats errors as learning information may support resilience, whereas a coach who punishes mistakes may increase anxiety and defensive motivation. The athletes' emphasis on skill climate and competitive opportunities suggests that performance satisfaction in table tennis may depend heavily on whether athletes perceive competition as a route to learning rather than a simple test of superiority.

The main originality of the study is therefore not the isolated identification of supportive coaching, mastery climate, or goal setting, which are already established in the literature. Rather, the contribution lies in showing how these elements are jointly experienced in table tennis, a sport in which frequent visible errors, rapid tactical correction, and close coach-athlete interaction make the coach's immediate responses especially consequential for perceived performance satisfaction.

The practical implication is that coach education should include structured reflection on coaching philosophy, communication style, emotional support, leadership flexibility, motivational climate, and goal-setting methods. Coaches should be encouraged to examine whether their daily behaviors support athletes' autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They should also be trained to provide feedback that is specific, informational, and developmentally appropriate. In youth table tennis, this is particularly important because athletes are developing both technical skills and psychological interpretations of success and failure.

Table 5 translates the qualitative findings into applied recommendations for coach education and youth table tennis programs.

The study has limitations. The sample was restricted to table tennis coaches and athletes, and the findings should not be generalized mechanically to other sports. The qualitative design provides depth rather than statistical representativeness. In addition, the analysis relied on self-reported experiences, which may be influenced by memory, social desirability, interviewer effects, and the specific culture of the participating clubs. Interview duration, competition level, and detailed club characteristics were not systematically available for all participants; this limits transferability. Future research should combine interviews with direct observation of coaching behavior, validated measures of motivational climate, and intervention studies testing whether coach education can improve athletes' motivation, performance satisfaction, and sport retention.

Conclusion

This study showed that coaches' behaviors in table tennis are experienced as technical, relational, ethical, and motivational practices. From the coaches' perspective, coaching behavior involved philosophy, social support, leadership style, motivational climate, and goal setting. From the athletes' perspective, these behaviors were experienced through expectations, performance climate, skill climate, and goal orientations. The findings indicate that athletes' performance satisfaction is not shaped only by results. It is also shaped by whether the coach creates a climate of support, learning, trust, and meaningful challenge.

Supportive communication, positive feedback, emotional availability, task-oriented climates, and individualized goals appear to facilitate motivation and satisfaction. In contrast, excessive control, punishment for mistakes, rigid outcome emphasis, and comparison with others may undermine intrinsic motivation and psychological security. Coaches should therefore adopt a reflective and self-regulatory approach to their own behavior. Coach education programs should emphasize not only technical expertise but also the motivational and interpersonal consequences of coaching practice.

Declarations

Ethical Considerations

The study was conducted in accordance with ethical principles for research involving human participants. Participants were informed about the aims and procedures of the study, participation was voluntary, and written informed consent was obtained before data collection. For athletes under 18 years of age, guardian consent and athlete assent should be verified in accordance with institutional requirements before journal submission. No personally identifiable information is reported in this manuscript. The submitted study record did not include an institutional ethics approval code; therefore, the authors should provide the approval code or an official waiver statement if required by the target journal.

Author Contributions

Hamidreza Sarafrazian: conceptualization, investigation, data collection, formal analysis, and writing-original draft. Zohreh Meshkati: supervision, methodology, validation, and writing-review and editing. Rokhsareh Badami: conceptual guidance, qualitative interpretation, and writing-review and editing. Zahra Serjooi: resources, project administration, and writing-review and editing. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this research.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The qualitative data generated during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, subject to ethical restrictions and participant confidentiality.

Artificial Intelligence Statement

Generative artificial intelligence tools were used only for English language refinement, editorial structuring, and formatting support. All scientific content, qualitative interpretation, methodological decisions, and final approval remain the responsibility of the authors.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the coaches, athletes, and table tennis clubs that contributed to this study.