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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1512803
This article is part of the Research Topic Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Team Sports: Contextualizing Training and Competition Demands -Volume II View all 3 articles
Verbal Encouragement in Coaching: Enhancing Small-Sided Game Performance in Youth Basketball Players
Provisionally accepted- 1 Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Osmaniye, Türkiye
- 2 Department of Psychiatry, Ministry of Health, Manama, Manama, Bahrain
- 3 Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabiltation, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
- 4 High Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Sfax, Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
- 5 Department of Training and Movement Science, Institute of Sport Science, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany, Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
- 6 Faculty of Sports Sciences, Tokat Gaziosmanapasa University, Tokat, Türkiye
Background Verbal coach encouragement is a key motivational strategy that enhances skill development, game strategy execution, and team cohesion. In youth basketball, where players are still developing technical and decision-making abilities, coach encouragement can play a crucial role in sustaining effort, improving focus, and fostering resilience under small-sided games (SSGs). This study investigated how coach encouragement (CE) influences young basketball players' technical performance and psychophysiological responses during competitive gameplay. Methods: Sixteen male basketball players (age = 15.19 ± 1.05 years) voluntarily participated in the study. Heart rate, ratings of perceived exertion, mood states and technical activities were recorded with coach encouragement and without coach encouragement during SSGs. Results The results showed that SSGs with coach encouragement were associated with significantly higher heart rate (p ≤ 0.05, d = 1.69), maximum heart rate percentage (p ≤ 0.05, d = 1.15), ratings of perceived exertion (p ≤ 0.05, d = 1.69), enjoyment (p ≤ 0.007, d = 0.86), technical abilities (e.g., successful passes and shots; p ≤ 0.05, d ranging from 1.08 to 1.25), and fatigue (p ≤ 0.03, d = 1.47).The findings of this study highlight the importance of CE in improving the psychophysiological and technical abilities of young basketball players during SSGs. CE improves coach-athlete relationships and increases game performance.
Keywords: coach, coach encouragement, Verbal feedback, Game performance, Technical performance, Verbal encouragement
Received: 17 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yılmaz, Jahrami, Batalik, Trabelsi, Ammar and Soylu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ladislav Batalik, Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabiltation, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
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