Coach and Athlete Burnout - West Virginia University

Burnout 27
swimmers perceive their coaches to use more of an autocratic style in making decision,
their own levels of burnout increase correspondingly. Further, as collegiate swimmers
perceive their coaches to utilize a democratic approach to decision-making, their own
levels of burnout decrease. However, while statistically significant, the obtained
correlation coefficients between athletes’ perceptions of the decision-making style of
their coaches and their levels of burnout were low.
Gender, Autocratic Decision-Making Style, and Burnout Among Swimmers
To assess any interactions between collegiate swimmers’ gender and a perceived
coaches’ autocratic decision-making style on their burnout levels, three, two-way (gender
x high/low autocratic) ANOVAs were utilized. Each burnout subscale (e.g. exhaustion,
sport devaluation, reduced sense of accomplishment) served as a dependent variable for
each two-way ANOVA conducted. MANOVAs were not employed due to the
insufficient cell sizes and statistical power necessary to carry out this statistical
procedure. Collegiate swimmers’ scores on the perceived autocratic decision-making
behavior subscale of the LSS were recoded into either high or low autocratic perception
categories. A median split was used to determine if scores were categorized as high or
low. Those scores above the median were classified as high autocratic perception and
those below classified as low autocratic perception.
The results of the ANOVAs revealed no statistically significant interactions
between gender and high/low autocratic perceptions of collegiate swimmers on any of the
three subscales of burnout. Further examination revealed no significant main effects for
gender or high/low autocratic perception on any of the three burnout subscales. Although
not statistically significant, trends in the data revealed that collegiate swimmers