Title: Investigating leadership, gender, and coaching level using the Revised

Leadership for Sport Scale.

REVIEWERS COMMENTS
Title:
The number of words used for this articles title are 13, which lies within the
recommended 10-18 words for a standard article
Authors:
The two authors Jamber E. A., & Zhang J.J were competent enough to undertake
this study on sports.
Journal:
The scope of this journal matches the ambitions and aspirations of the authors
and the publisher, the university of Windsor, Canada.

Abstract:
The abstract is a brief of the whole research and touches on the objectives,
methodology, and summary of the findings. Its length also fits within the
recommended 200-250 words.
Introduction:
The study generally gives a good background of the sports field as far as coaches’
behaviors to the athletes are concerned; as well as identifying the history and
possible future stratagem in coach-athlete relationship and behavior.
Research methodology:
The purpose of the study was to determine possible differences in leadership
behaviors, using the Revised Leadership for Sport Scale (RLSS), between male and
female coaches and among different coaching levels. The researchers submitted
two hypotheses. The first hypothesis was that male and female coaches would
respond differently to the RLSS in overall leadership behaviors. The second
hypothesis was that differences on the RLSS would occur among coaching levels:
junior high, high school, and college.
The sample was nonrandom, including 162 coaches that were chosen on a
volunteer basis. Within the sample, 118 (0.73) of the coaches were male, while
44 (0.27) were female. With regard to coaching level, 25 (0.15) were junior high
coaches, 99 (0.61) high school, and 38 (0.24) at the college level. While this is a
good sample size, the problem lies with the distribution of the sample. The
sample number for junior high coaches, in particular, is rather low. A larger
sample with regard to all categories would have aided in the data analysis,
particularly when looking for possible interactions between gender and coaching
level.
The instrument utilized was the Revised Leadership for Sport Scale (RLSS)
developed by Zhang, Jensen, and Mann in 1996. This scale is used to measure six
leadership behaviors: training and instruction, democratic, autocratic, social
support, positive feedback, and situational consideration. The scale uses 60
statements, which were preceded by In coaching, I: A Likert scale was then given
for each statement: 1 = never; 2 = seldom; 3 = occasionally; 4 = often; and 5 =
always. This produced an ordinal level data set. Scales were administered in a
number of environmental settings: classrooms, gymnasiums, practice fields, and
offices. The internal consistency for each section was calculated: 0.84 for training
and instruction; 0.66 for democratic; 0.70 for autocratic; 0.52 for social support;
0.78 for positive feedback; and 0.69 for situational consideration. There was no
information, however, regarding the validity of the RLSS.
Result and Analysis:
A MANOVA was used to analyze the data for differences between male and
female coaches with regard to leadership behaviors. This is not consistent with
the type of data collected. The RLSS used a Likert scale (ordinal), yet a MANOVA
would be most applicable for normally distributed, quantitative data. The analysis
showed there were no significant differences between male and female coaches
in overall leadership behaviors. When the six leadership styles were examined
separately, there was a significant difference in social support between males and
females. In general, females scored much higher than did the male coaches.
A MANOVA was also used to examine the data for differences between the three
levels of coaching (junior high, high school, and college) with regard to leadership
behavior in general. There were significant differences between the three levels.
When breaking down the six behaviors and examining them individually, an
ANOVA was used to analyze the data. Again, because the data for the RLSS is
ordinal, an ANOVA is not the best analysis tool. The three coaching levels scored
differently on three of the six behaviors: democratic behaviors, training and
instruction, and social support. High school coaches scored much higher than
college level coaches in democratic behavior. Junior high coaches were
significantly lower in training and instruction than either high school or college
coaches. Junior high coaches also demonstrated a lesser degree of social support
than either the high school or college coaches.
A MANOVA was again used to analyze the data for any interaction between
gender and coaching level with regard to overall leadership behavior. Once again,
a better analysis method could have been chosen based on the nature of the data
collected. The results indicated no significant interactions.
The ecological generalizability for the study is fairly high. The surveys were
mailed out, and returned on a volunteer basis. However, due to the nonrandom
nature of the sample, the results would not be generalizable beyond the 162
participants in the study. There was no effect size listed for the study.
In order to reduce threats to internal validity, the participants were asked to
respond honestly and confidentiality was stressed so that the coaches might feel
more at ease in responding. No other efforts were indicated. The researchers
mention that the scales were given in a variety of settings. This could present a
threat to the internal validity in that participants might not have been entirely
focused on completing the scale, but instead on coordinating practice, completing
paperwork, etc. There are a number of other factors that could affect the internal
validity of the study, yet were not addressed by the researchers. Coaching
experience would greatly affect the responses of the participants, yet this was not
considered in the study. The gender of the athletes may be a contributing factor
to the coaches’ responses. It is not unreasonable to suppose that coaches of
female athletes, particularly at the junior high and high school levels, will
demonstrate more social support than those of male athletes. The nature of the
sport could also be critical. Certain coaching styles are more applicable for
individual sports (wrestling, track, and tennis) than for team sports (football,
soccer, and basketball). The socioeconomics and population of the school itself
could play a factor. Certain schools have better athletes and programs in a
particular sport, while others may not be able to field a winning team. In
addition, at the high school level, coaches are occasionally asked/forced to work
with a program they have no knowledge of or desire to coach due to staffing
shortages. This could dramatically influence a coach’s response to the scale
questions. The history of the program as well as the individual coach’s personal
coaching history could greatly influence responses. If the program has had
several losing seasons in a row, perhaps the attitude of the coach could be
different than that of a coach who has recently won a state title. An additional
set of questions regarding the personal history of the coach in question could
have helped reduce many of these threats. With additional information, the
researchers may have been able to use a modified matching system when
analyzing the results. By increasing the number of independent variables to
include things such as coaching experience and gender of the athletes, the
researchers could have reduced some of the potential threats to internal validity.
In addition, bringing coaches together to a common setting could have reduced
location threat. Coaches meet seasonally for clinics. Perhaps obtaining
permission to administer the survey during these meetings would have been
possible. It would have also been possible to actually go to individual schools and
meet with the coaches as a group to administer surveys. This method would have
given a good cross-section of gender and coaching experience for a variety of
sports.
Conclusion:
While the study has merit, the methods need to be re-evaluated. The power of
the study needs to be increased by obtaining a larger sample size. The numerous
potential threats to internal validity need to be addressed and minimized where
possible. It would also be helpful to be given data regarding the validity of the
RLSS. Without these, it is impossible to evaluate the potential meaningfulness of
this study.
References:
Quality references are used in this study with the correct APA referencing style in
use. All work citations in the article are included in the last page of the article as
per the requirements of journal guidelines.
Final verdict:
This work represents a fairly good quality article with most journal guidelines and
requirements having been well met by the authors. Nonetheless, increasing the
sample size and may have lead the authors to increase the number of
independent variables and /or vice versa. However, the study meets the
threshold for publication.