A importância da relação treinador-atleta e do clima motivacional para o desenvolvimento da robustez mental: Um estudo misto na formação desportiva de futebol

Abstract

The training sport inherent to the high-performance path has a unique level of demand and as an athlete develops it is possible to see that this demand grows exponentially. Taking this scenario into account, it is essential that athletes develop psychological skills that allow them to experience the context of sports training to have good performance and well-being. In this sense, mental toughness, possibly influenced by contextual variables, is extremely important for the way in which the young athlete will adapt to the sports training context. The general objective of this dissertation is to investigate the possible interaction between the mental toughness of athletes and other contextual and relational variables (i.e., the motivational climate and the coach-athlete relationship). For this purpose, we present a mixed, parallel, and convergent design. Firstly, we investigated, using a quantitative methodology, the nature and strength of the relationship between mental toughness, motivational climate and coach-athlete relationship, and then, we used qualitative methodology to understand how the previously mentioned interactions are perceived and interpreted by the coaches. In the first study, 154 male football athletes participated, from the sports training of an elite European club, aged between 12 and 19 years old. The following instruments were used: Mental Toughness Index (MTI); Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire-Coach (EDMCQ-C) and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Scale (CART-Q). The analyzes revealed that the empowering motivational climate and the quality coach-athlete relationship are associated with higher levels of mental toughness. The sample did not show significant differences between the levels in terms of mental toughness. The second article focused on evaluating how coaches perceive the impact of their relationship with the athlete, and the motivational climate on the mental toughness of the athletes on their team. A thematic analysis of the speech of four coaches from one of the levels was carried out. The results suggest that the coaches recognized the importance that an empowering motivational climate as well as the quality of their relationship with the athletes can have on the athletes' mental toughness. However, the lack of knowledge of practical measures to enable actions that foster an empowering context makes it impossible for them to use facilitating strategies for this. When relating the results found in the two articles, even though athletes present ideal levels of mental toughness, there are aspects present in the speech of some coaches that suggest the existence of motivational climates of control and that could reduce these mental toughness indices in the long term. Therefore, we conclude that the need for continuous exploration of this topic is evident, to reach an audience of coaches in a practical way and to make it viable to apply adaptive strategies for the development of athletes as well as also including other relevant agents to sports culture