Coaches and parents can help maximize learning and boost motivation among their athletes by focusing on effort rather than competence. This boost in learning and motivation is essential for helping the athlete steadily improve in competence over time. Here are four ways a coach or parent can effectively motivate athletes using positive feedback.
Most coaches (and parents) understand the value of positive feedback in motivating their athletes. Not as many realize that to have maximum impact, such positive feedback should be focused on effort much more than competence.
Providing praise for competence is one of the most commonly used motivational tactics in youth sports. It is a natural response to praise the well-executed action (the made shot, the caught ball, etc.) that helps the team succeed. But we are learning from research that an over-emphasis on praise for competence may actually undermine the athlete's motivation to learn more.
Praise for effort, on the other hand, fosters the pursuit of improvement-oriented goals and positively impacts the athlete’s sense of self-worth. Whether the athlete is a superstar or of limited talent, praise of effort is a more powerful motivator than praise of competence - and thus a more effective way of helping the athlete build greater competence.
Here are four ways a coach or parent can effectively motivate athletes using positive feedback.
1. Encourage athletes to adopt learning goals rather than performance goals.
When your athletes set specific performance goals and fail to meet those goals, they are more likely to be plagued by negative affect, and less likely to set and attempt related goals in the future. On the other hand, when athletes set learning goals and evaluate success based on improvement, they exhibit more positive affect and are more likely to continue to set and pursue athletic goals.
2.Praise effort on successful attempts
When your athletes successfully demonstrate competence at a skill, praise the effort behind the success. When success is associated with effort rather than ability, athletes are more likely to persist at the specific behaviors you want them to demonstrate. Also, athletes who have been praised for effort on successful attempts will be less likely to attribute a subsequent failure to their own inability. This will help the athlete sustain confidence even in the face of setbacks.
3. Praise effort and provide information on unsuccessful attempts
When your athletes are unable to demonstrate competence at a skill, praising effort increases the likelihood that the athlete will be willing to continue to attempt the skill. Providing corrective information about their first attempt after praising their effort encourages them to reattempt the skill with a new mental strategy.
4. Avoid using punishment as a tool to teach athletic skills
The long tradition of punishing athletes for failing to demonstrate skill competence is slowly but surely fading away. In the sport and exercise context, not only is punishment detrimental to the psyche of the athlete, it is also largely ineffective. For example, running as a punishment for improper skill execution negatively impacts resiliency, goal-setting behavior, and intent to attempt the skill in the future. Moreover, the punisher fails to elicit improvement in the desired skill set.
Take-Away
In summary, coaches and parents can help maximize learning and boost motivation among their athletes by focusing on effort rather than competence. This boost in learning and motivation is essential for helping the athlete steadily improve in competence over time.
