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Players' perceptions of their coaches' immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness

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Kelly A. Rocca
Kelly A. Rocca
Kelly A. Rocca
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Matthew Martin at West Virginia University
Matthew Martin
Mary C. Toale
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Mary C. Toale
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This study involved players’ perceptions of their coaches’ nonverbal immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness. Previously in the classroom setting, Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) found that in the classroom setting nonverbal immediacy was positively, moderately correlated to both assertiveness and responsiveness. College students (N = 192) were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on a coach that they had in high school. Players who perceived their coaches as being nonverbally immediate, also perceived their coaches as being responsive, and to a lesser extent, assertive. Future research directions include considering the relationships between a coach's nonverbal immediacy with player motivation and satisfaction.
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Download by: [West Virginia University] Date: 14 May 2016, At: 11:26
Communication Research Reports
ISSN: 0882-4096 (Print) 1746-4099 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcrr20
Players' perceptions of their coaches' immediacy,
assertiveness, and responsiveness
Kelly A. Rocca , Matthew M. Martin & Mary C. Toale
To cite this article: Kelly A. Rocca , Matthew M. Martin & Mary C. Toale (1998) Players'
perceptions of their coaches' immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness, Communication
Research Reports, 15:4, 445-450, DOI: 10.1080/08824099809362144
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08824099809362144
Published online: 06 Jun 2009.
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Players' Perceptions of Their Coaches'
Immediacy, Assertiveness, and Responsiveness
Kelly A. Rocca
West Virginia UniversityMatthew M. Martin
West Virginia University
Mary C. Toale
West Virginia University
This study involved players' perceptions of their coaches' nonverbal
immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness. Previously in the
classroom
setting,
Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) found that in the classroom setting
nonverbal immediacy was positively, moderately correlated to both assertiveness
and responsiveness. College students (N = 192) were asked to fill out a
questionnaire based on a
coach
that they had in high
school.
Players who
perceived
their
coaches
as being nonverbally immediate, also perceived their
coaches
as being
responsive, and to a lesser extent, assertive. Future research directions include
considering the relationships between a coach's nonverbal immediacy with player
motivation and satisfaction.
The area of coaching as a form of teaching and of instructional communication has been
overlooked in the communication literature. Arguably, the concepts that are used to
measure communication of teachers could be used to evaluate the communication of
coaches. Coaches are often seen as teachers in the sense that they help to encourage and
develop affective, cognitive, and behavioral learning of a sport The perceived closeness a
player feels to his or her coach (i.e., immediacy) is one communication variable that may
play an integral role in the player-coach relationship. Specifically, this study involved
players' perceptions of their coaches' immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness.
Kelly A. Rocca (M.A., West Virginia University, 1997) and Mary C Toale (M.A., West Virginia
University, 1998) are doctoral students, and Matthew M. Martin (Ph.D., Kent State University, 1992)
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University,
Morgantown, WV 26506.
COMMUNICATION RESEARCH REPORTS, Volume 15, Number 4, pages 445-450
Downloaded by [West Virginia University] at 11:26 14 May 2016
Page 446 - Communication Research Reports/Fall 1998
The concept of immediacy dates back to Mehrabian in 1971. "People are drawn toward
persons and things they like, evaluate highly, and prefer; and they avoid or move away
from things they dislike, evaluate negatively, or do not prefer" (Mehrabian, 1971, p.l).
Immediacy relates to approach and avoidance behaviors and can be thought of as the
perceived distance between people (Mehrabian, 1971; Andersen, 1978; 1979).
Immediacy has been researched primarily in the context of the college classroom. In the
classroom, immediacy is positively related to cognitive learning (Gorham, 1988), affective
learning (Kearney, Plax, Smith, & Sorensen, 1988; Kearney, Plax, & Wandt-Wesco, 1985;
Plax, Kearney, McCroskey, & Richmond, 1986), motivation (Christophel, 1990), recall of
information (Kelley & Gorham, 1988), and compliance (Kearney, Plax, Smith, & Sorensen,
1988;
Richmond, 1990). All of these relationships could be meaningful in studying the
player-coach relationship.
Seemingly, an immediate coach would create positive affect between him/herself and
the players. An immediate coach could get her or his players to like him or herself as well
as the sport Sometimes athletes quit playing sports because they did not like the coach.
Other times, athletes may increase their participation because they like their coach. Greater
affect could lead to greater cognitive learning of the sport and all of its complexities,
possibly leading to greater recall of information and greater performance by the players.
This is crucial in a game situation where the player is under a great deal of stress and must
try to remember what was learned from the coach during practice. The player must be
paying attention to the coach during practice in order to remember what to do when faced
with the pressure of a game situation. An immediate coach might also be more successful
in motivating a player/team to succeed.
Two other communication variables that have been studied with immediacy are
assertiveness and responsiveness. Assertiveness involves being able to speak up for
oneself.
Assertive communicators are often very dominant, independent, and competitive.
Responsiveness involves being other-oriented. Responsive communicators are often very
empathic, friendly, and helpful (Richmond & Martin, 1998). Lamke, Sollie, Durbin, and
Fitzpatrick's (1994) study supported these descriptions by finding that assertiveness was
associated with instrumental competence, while responsiveness was associated with
expressive competence. Research has consistently shown that people differ in how they
communicate with others based on their assertiveness and responsiveness (Anderson &
Martin, 1996; Martin & Anderson, 1996a; Martin, Chesebro, & Mottet, 1997; Richmond &
McCroskey, 1995).
In the classroom, Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) investigated the
relationship between assertiveness and responsiveness with immediacy. Thomas et al.
found both assertiveness and responsiveness to be positively correlated with immediacy,
r = .48 and r
=
.46, respectively. The relationship between assertiveness and responsiveness
was not significant (r = .01). When teachers are more immediate with their students, they are
also perceived as being more assertive and responsive.
This study attempted to replicate the findings of Thomas et al. (1994), and lo extend
their research by considering immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness in the player-
coach relationship. Thus, two hypotheses and one research question were proposed:
HI:
There is a positive relationship between the coach's immediacy
and the coach's assertiveness.
Downloaded by [West Virginia University] at 11:26 14 May 2016
Coaching Behaviors - Page 447
H2:
There is a positive relationship between the coach's immediacy
and the coach's responsiveness.
RQ:
What is the relationship between a coach's assertiveness and a
coach's responsiveness?
METHOD
Participants
Participants were 192 undergraduate students in a large communication service class at
a midwestern university. The sample consisted of 104 males, 84 females, and 24 students
who did not reveal their sex. The mean age of the sample was 19.14 (SD = 3.46).
Participation was voluntary and participants earned minimal extra credit All participation
took place during regular class time. Students were asked to fill out a questionnaire based
on a coach that they had in high school. High school was chosen because of the increased
chance of students who are now in college at a division one school to have played sports in
high school, but not in college. Students who did not play any sports in high school were
given a questionnaire to complete for a different study.
Instruments
A questionnaire was distributed with a modified 16-item version of the Nonverbal
Immediacy Measure (Richmond, Gorham, & McCroskey, 1987), the Assertiveness-
Responsiveness Measure (Richmond & McCroskey, 1990), and several demographic
questions.
The Nonverbal Immediacy Measure (NIM) has been shown in numerous studies to be
both valid and reliable. A revised 16-item version was used here which was adapted
specifically for nonverbal coaching behaviors.1 After the scale was modified, a focus group
of graduate students familiar with the immediacy construct were given the scale items to
assess for face validity. Modifications were made so that the scale would be consistent
across all sports. The mean for the revised Nonverbal Immediacy Measure was 44.53 out of
a possible 64 (SD = 7.05). Obtained reliability for the 16-item scale in this study was .72.
The Assertiveness-Responsiveness Measure was developed by Richmond and
McCroskey (1990). This scale measures both the assertiveness and responsiveness of a target
person as seen by the individual completing the scale. In this study, the coach was the
specified source. The maximum score for both assertiveness and responsiveness is 50 and
the minimum score for both is ten. The mean for assertiveness was 40.49 (SD
—
6.31) and
33.50 (SD = 8.63) for responsiveness. Reliabilities were .83 for assertiveness, and .94 for
responsiveness.
RESULTS
Both hypotheses were tested using one-tailed Pearson correlations. The research
question was investigated using a two-tailed Pearson correlation.
Hypothesis One predicted that there was a positive relationship between immediacy
and assertiveness. This hypothesis was supported (r = .13, p < .05). While statistically
significant, the magnitude of the relationship between immediacy and assertiveness was
small.
Hypothesis Two predicted that there was a positive relationship between immediacy
and responsiveness. This hypothesis was also supported (r = .58, p < .0001). Thus, coaches
Downloaded by [West Virginia University] at 11:26 14 May 2016
Page 448 - Communication Research Reports/Fall 1998
who are perceived as being immediate are also seen as being responsive.
The research question involved the relationship between assertiveness and
responsiveness. The correlation between these two variables was not significant (r = .03,
p<.05).
Following the analyses conducted by Thomas et al. (1994), post hoc analyses were
conducted to look at the relationships between assertiveness and responsiveness, with the
individual nonverbal immediacy items. These results are reported in Table 1.
TABLE 1
Relationship between the Individual Immediacy items With Assertiveness and Responsiveness
Immediacy Items Assertiveness Responsiveness
1
.35**
-.02
2 -.10
.57**
3 .17* .06
4 .16* .11
5 -.08 .11
6
.23**
.20**
7
.27**
.31**
8 -.09
.50**
9 -.12
.29**
10 .07 .00
11
.37**
.13
12 -.04
.39**
13 -.15 .54**
14 .02 .14*
15 .21**
.39**
16 -.09
.26**
Note.
*
E<05,
** E<-01
Assertiveness was positively related to gesturing, touching, moving around, having
eye contact, and using vocal variety. Responsiveness was positively related to smiling,
having eye contact, using vocal variety, being relaxed, touching, and being person ally close.
DISCUSSION
The goal of this study was to look at the relationships between coaches' immediacy
behaviors, assertiveness, and responsiveness. Coaches who are immediate are also seen as
high in responsiveness, and to a limited extent, more assertive. This was somewhat
unexpected since in Thomas et al.'s (1994) study, immediacy was moderately related to both
assertiveness and responsiveness. Possibly, immediacy as measured for the coach-specific
context lends itself more toward the dimension of responsiveness than assertiveness.
Thomas et al. (1994) did not report the mean scores for assertiveness and respo nsiveness
of teachers, but in a sample of over 600 of the general population, Martin and Anderson
(1996b) reported a higher mean score for responsiveness in comparison to assertiveness. In
this current study, players rated their coaches significantly more assertive than responsive
Downloaded by [West Virginia University] at 11:26 14 May 2016
Coaching Behaviors - Page 449
f(188) = 9.11, p < .001. The functions of coaching might require people to accentuate their
assertiveness in order to be effective. Since this study did not measure relational or
behavioral outcomes, we cannot conclude to what extent coaches being assertive,
responsive, and/or immediate is considered appropriate and effective by their players.
Future researchers could look at the relationship between a coach's nonverbal
immediacy with players' motivation and satisfaction. In the classroom, teachers who are
immediate have students who report being more motivated and satisfied. Would these
relationships also exist in the player-coach relationship? In looking at different coaching
styles and different communication behaviors, one could also investigate athletes who have
quit the sport because of their coach to see the communication of that coach and if that has
any effect on athletes quitting a sport.
One possible limitation of this study is that high school athletes vary in their intensity
and successfulness in the sport. Also, many of them are not competing now and may either
be looking back with fond memories or may have used this study as a self-serving means of
revenge. They may have somewhat distorted memories or selective memories in this
regard. Future researchers need to investigate athletes who are currently playing. This
study also focused solely from the player's perspective. Another area of interest for future
researchers is the coaches themselves. Coaches could report on their thoughts and behaviors
involving about their communication patterns. Since many people do participate in sports
at one time or another, further research on the communication that occurs in the coach-
player relationship could be useful and practical.
NOTE
1 Below are the 16 items of the Nonverbal Immediacy Measure used in this study.
Items that were reversed coded are signified with a (R) at the end of the item. 1.
Gestures while talking to the team. 2. Smiles at the team while talking. 3. Touches
players during practice/games. 4. Moves around the playing area when coaching.
5.
Stands a far distance away while coaching. (R) 6. Uses a monotone/dull voice
when talking to the team. (R) 7. Looks at the players on the team when talking/
coaching. 8. Smiles at individual players on the team during practice/games. 9. Has
a very tense body position when talking to the team. (R) 10. Sits on the sideline
while coaching during practice. (R) 11. Uses a variety of vocal expressions when
talking to the players. 12. Has a very relaxed body position while coaching. 13.
Smiles during practice/games. 14. Keeps a great distance between him/herself and
the players while coaching. (R) 15. Gives players a pat on the back for a job well
done. 16. Pushes/shoves players violently when they do something wrong. (R)
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Sporting environments are informal contexts of learning that are dependent upon coaches’ use of effective instructional communication strategies. Coaches’ use of power while communicating instruction to athletes is especially germane, as coaches must appropriately use relational influence to inspire optimal athletic performance. Using French and Raven’s power bases (i.e., expert, referent, reward, legitimate, and coercive power), this study considers Division I student-athletes’ reports of affective learning for their sport and coaches, cognitive learning, state motivation, and team winning percentages as a function of their coaches’ use of power. Data collected from 170 student-athletes participating in team sports at Power 5 institutions revealed two significant canonical correlation roots. The first demonstrated that the increased use of prosocial power and avoidance of antisocial power were associated with greater amounts of affective learning for coaches, cognitive learning, and state motivation. The second revealed that expert power was associated with increases in cognitive learning and winning. This research has heuristic implications for expanding the assessment of athlete experience, as well as practical implications regarding the identification of effective modes of relational influence in coaching.
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High School Athletes’ Reports of Confirmation as a Function of Starting Status and Leader–Member Exchange
Article
  • Jul 2018
Previous research indicates that athletes report receiving disparate levels of confirmation, which is consequential given the psychological, emotional, and cognitive benefits of being confirmed. This article explains head coaches’ use of confirmation, which is comprised of accepting and challenging communication, as a function of athletes’ roles and leader–member exchange (LMX). Data obtained from 197 high school athletes—representing 17 sports and from 16 states—substantiated that starters receive more recognition and acknowledgement of their efforts and accomplishments (i.e., acceptance) but are not more likely to receive communication that seeks the refinement of their potential (i.e., challenge). LMX with head coaches, however, accounted for much larger portions of variance in reports of receiving confirmation, with in-group relationships being predictive of greater amounts of confirmation. These results indicate that confirmation is received as a function of the roles of athletes and their interpersonal relationships with coaches. Such findings provide mechanisms to explain disparate experiences of confirmation and connect two theoretical bodies of literature in a manner that intersects the organizational and interpersonal processes of coaching.
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Argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 1996
  • J Soc Behav Pers
This study investigated the communication traits of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness. Richmond and McCroskey (1992) stated that the individual who possesses assertive and responsive skills should be described as competent. Likewise, the person high in assertiveness and low in responsiveness is aggressive; the person low in assertiveness but high in responsiveness is submissive; and the person low in assertiveness and responsiveness is noncompetent. Participants (N = 665) completed measures of assertiveness, responsiveness, argumentativeness, and verbal aggressiveness. The results support the operationalization of a socio-communicative orientation construct. Assertive communicators are more argumentative while responsive communicators are less verbally aggressive.
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Communication motives of assertive and responsive communicators
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 1995
Communicators, in one of four groups based on their assertive and responsive behaviors, were investigated for differences in their interpersonal motives for communicating. Competent communicators (high assertive, high responsive) communicated from needs for affection, pleasure, and inclusion more than noncompetent (low assertive, low responsive), submissive (low assertive, high responsive) and aggressive (high assertive, low responsive) individuals. Aggressive types communicated more from control needs, while noncompetent communicators communicated from escape needs. Implications for future research are discussed.
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Masculinity, Femininity and Relationship Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Competence
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this study was to examine more fully the relationship between masculinity, femininity and satisfaction among dating couples. A multivariate causal model was developed and tested to assess Ickes' (1985) conceptual model of gender-role influences on relationship satisfaction. Dating couples (N = 174) completed the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire and the Relationship Satisfaction Scale. Results indicated that for both males and females, relationship satisfaction was related to their own expressive competence and to perceptions of their partner as feminine. Also, levels of expressive competence mediated the relationship between self-perceptions of femininity and satisfaction. For females, perceptions of partners' femininity were predicted by males' and females' self-perceived femininity. For males, perceptions of partners' femininity were predicted by females' self-perceived femininity and males' self-perceived masculinity. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings not only for the specific model of gender-role influences in dyadic interactions, but also for more `broadly conceived theories of relationship development.
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Teacher Immediacy as a Predictor of Teaching Effectiveness
Article
  • Dec 1979
This investigation examined teacher immediacy as a potential predictor of teaching effectiveness. Teacher immediacy was conceptualized as those nonverbal behaviors that reduce physical and/or psychological distance between teachers and students. Teaching effectiveness was examined in light of teacher ability to produce affective, behavioral and cognitive student learning. Hypothesized results indicated that in a multiple regression model, teacher immediacy predicted 46% of the variance in student affect toward the course instructor and about 20% of the variance in student affect toward the course content. Immediacy also predicted 18% of the variance in student behavioral commitment. Cognitive learning as operationalized by test score was not significantly predicted by teacher immediacy. Canonical correlation analysis produced one significant canonical relationship between specific and generalized teacher immediacy and teaching effectiveness.
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26 . The Relationship Between Selected Immediacy Behaviors and Cognitive Learning
Article
  • Jan 1987
L EARNING, particularly that which takes place in the traditional classroom setting, is an interactional process. Although curricular decisions, materials development, the organization of lectures, and the like focus primarily on the teacher's transmission of content-and student evaluation on comprehension and retention of that content-there is little disagreement that interpersonal perceptions and communicative relationships between teachers and students are crucial to the teaching-learning process. From a theoretical standpoint, Bloom's (1956) conceptualization of learn-ing as affective (development of a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward learning), behavioral (development of psychomotor skills or observable behavior change as a result of learning), and cognitive (comprehension and retention of knowledge) has for several decades been accepted widely as an elegant characterization of the learning construct. An interdepen-dence among these domains of learning generally has been recognized among educators, an assumption crucial to the fact that evaluation of learning outcomes often is focused on measurement within a selected domain. Physical and vocational education skills, which are clearly observ-able psychomotor skills, are often assessed in the behavioral domain. Stu-dents' learning of traditional "academic subjects," for which generalization of learning to behavior outside the classroom is more difficult to assess, is generally measured via tests of recall, analysis, and synthesis, elements of the cognitive domain. Evaluation of teaching effectiveness, particularly that which is based on the ubiquitous student course evaluation form, is drawn largely from assessment of affective dimensions of teaching.
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Teacher Immediacy for Affective Learning in Divergent College Classes
Article
  • Jan 1985
This study examines immediacy salience and teacher nonverbal immediacy as potential indicators of student affective learning across different types of course content. Divergent courses were defined on a continuum ranging from P to T‐Type. P‐Type courses focus primarily on people‐oriented content, while T‐Type classes include content which is product or task‐oriented. Two research questions were addressed which were based on the logic that there is little reason to expect that teacher behaviors that are judged effective in one type of course content will be so in a very different type of course. Tests of the research questions in both P and T‐Type classes included multiple regression, commonality, and canonical correlation analyses. Results indicated that the actual magnitude of the impact of teacher immediacy on student affective learning and students’ perceptions of the importance of immediacy for instruction are a function of the type of course content taught. The findings are discussed in terms of affective learning and the relative importance of particular teacher communication behaviors for instruction in P and T‐Type classes.
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Effects of immediacy on recall of information
Article
  • Jul 1988
This study was designed to investigate the effects of immediacy on cognitive learning in an experimental situation which removed the effects of affect from the measurement of cognitive learning. The theoretical rationale examines immediacy behaviors as arousal stimuli which are associated with attentional focus, enhanced memory and recall. Results indicated that a combination of eye contact and physical immediacy accounted for 19.5% of the overall variance in recall, with equivalence and interaction of the two immediacy agents suggesting that other immediacy behaviors should produce potentially similar beneficial results.
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Effects of teacher immediacy and strategy type on college student resistance to on‐task demands
Article
  • Jan 1988
This study investigated the effects of teacher nonverbal immediacy and strategy type on college students' likelihood of resisting teacher compliance‐gaining attempts. Employing a 2 × 2 design, students were asked to indicate their likelihood of complying to teacher demands in one of the following scenarios: An immediate teacher who used prosocial (or antisocial) behavior alteration techniques; a nonimmediate teacher who used either strategy type. Predicting an interaction, results confirmed that students were less likely to resist an immediate teacher who employed prosocial techniques, but more likely to resist an immediate teacher who used antisocial techniques. In contrast, students reported greater resistance to a nonimmediate teacher employing prosocial techniques, but less resistance to a nonimmediate teacher who used antisocial techniques. Students' locus of control, gender, and class ranking were nonsignificant covariates. Findings were interpreted in terms of the interaction and the overwhelming influence of teacher nonverbal immediacy on students’ decisions to resist or comply.
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The relationships among teacher immediacy behaviors, student motivation, and learning
Article
  • Oct 1990
Two studies investigated the relationship between teacher immediacy and student state motivation and the combined impact of these factors on learning. Study One participants completed all instruments based on a preceding class. The scales were randomly split between students in Study Two who completed them based on an intact class. Correlations revealed significant relationships between learning and both immediacy and motivation. Regression analyses indicated both unique and colinear predictability of learning by nonverbal immediacy and state motivation. Immediacy appears to modify motivation which leads to increased learning. Important implications of Study Two data indicate relationships observed in earlier research were not a simple function of confounding when scores were reported by the same subjects completing multiple instruments.
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Communication in the Classroom: Power and Motivation
Article
  • Jul 1990
The goal of the present study was to determine which power bases and Behavior Alteration Techniques have positive, negative, and no association with student motivation toward studying course content. In addition, teacher immediacy and teacher use of affinity‐seeking techniques were examined for their potential to off‐set possible negative effects on student motivation resulting from teachers’ use of power and BATs to control mundane student behaviors in the classroom. To replicate previous work and place this study within the context of that work, both cognitive and affective learning also were examined. Results are summarized in the context of this and the previous studies in this series.
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