International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
of missing answers to some questions. Thus, 255 participants completed all of the questionnaires. The subjects
ranged in age from 15 to 20 years (mean age = 17.35 years; standard deviation = 0.78). In terms of experience,
the players’ amount ran the gamut from 0 (inexperience) to 10 years (mean age = 2.66 years; standard deviation
= 3.04). The age and experience of all of the participants (coaches and football players) were categorized into
three groups.
Statistical Analysis
The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between transformational leadership style of
coaches and sport commitment of Iranian high schools’ football players, and to provide a direct model with two
variables. The data was analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS 18 (Arbuckle,
2009) in order to investigate a model which reflects purposes of this study. In addition, the one-way ANOVA
was utilizing to determine the sport commitment differences in age and football playing experience category.
Procedure
Permission was obtained from the Iranian Ministry of Education to gather the data, whereupon the researcher
attended a meeting with high school coaches and administrators. The researcher elucidated the objectives and
aims of the research and requested the cooperation of the coaches and administrators in carrying out the
research. They were willing to assist the researcher in the gathering of data. The researcher handed out the
coaches’ demographic questionnaire to the 15 coaches and collected them after the coaches filled them out. The
researcher met each team in its respective dormitory to delineate the objective of the study; the researcher gave
the team members lucid instructions. Demographic, transformational (Rater form) and sport commitment
questionnaires were distributed among football players, and then the completed questionnaires were collected by
the researcher. It took about 30 minutes for the students to answer the questionnaires and they were requested to
answer all questions.
RESULT
Structural model was used to analyze hypotheses 1. As illustrated in Table 1 there is a positive and significant
medium correlation, r = 0.419 (Cohen, 1988) between the transformational leadership style of coaches and the
sport commitment of high schools’ football players in Iran at ρ value < 0.001. Therefore, the null hypothesis can
be rejected (reject H 01 at α = 0.001).
Table 1: Correlation Estimate among the Variables in the Measurement Model
Transformational Sport Commitment 0.419*
* Significant level at α < 0.001
The result as shown in Table 2 showed that transformational leadership style of coaches significantly
contributed toward the prediction sport- commitment of high schools' football players (β = 0.478, B = 0.477,
S.E. = 0.092, C.R .= 5.185. ρ = 0.000). The result based on standard regression weight (β) indicated that when
transformational leadership goes up by 1 standard deviation (SD), sport commitment goes up by 0.478 standard
deviations. Thus, the H 01 was supported by the data.
The unstandardized estimate (unstandardized regression coefficient) or B (0.477) indicated that when
transformational goes up by 1 SD, sport commitment goes up by 0.477 standard deviations. The regression
weight estimate, 0.477, has a standard error about 0.092. Critical Ratio (C.R.) calculated from dividing the
unstandardized estimate (B) by the estimate of its standard error (S.E.) (Z = 0.477 / 0.092 = 5.185). In other
words, the regression weight estimate is 5.185 standard errors above zero (Table 2). If an estimate has a critical
ratio greater than two (in absolute value), the estimate is significantly different from zero at the 0.05 level (C.R.
= 5.185 > 1.96, ρ < 0.05) (Arbuckle, 2009). Thus, the table shows that the covariance between transformational
and sport commitment is significantly different from 0 with ρ = 0.000 (at ρ level < 0.001).
Table 2: Standardized Regression Weights: Total Structural Model
DV path IV Unstand S.E. Standard C.R. ρ*
Estimate
Estimate
Sport
Commitment