Creating Positive Environments for Youth

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Creating Positive Environments for Youth

• Melissa S. Price
• University of Virginia

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Reasons Why Youth Participate
Attain warm, personal relationships
Gain social recognition and approval
Affiliation
Esteem
Excellence
Doing something very well
Arousal
Exciting and interesting experiences
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Reasons Why Youth Participate

• Develop physical competence
• learn and improve skills, be fit, get stronger,
  achieve goals
• Attain social acceptance and approval
• make friends, feel part of a group, approval from
  coach and parents
• Enjoy experiences related to involvement
• have fun, feel excited, do something interesting

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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Coach Influence

• Provide optimal challenges
• Provide informational feedback
• Provide evaluative feedback
• Provide a mastery climate
• Provide strategies for self-regulated learning

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Coach Influence

• Provide optimal challenges
• the cutting edge of ones potential
• Hard, but realistic goals
• Developmental skill progressions
• Make modifications to optimize task difficulty

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Coach Influence

• Provide optimal challenges
• Provide informational feedback
• Provide evaluative feedback
• Provide a mastery climate
• Provide strategies for self-regulated learning

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Coach Influence

• Informational feedback
• Instruction to develop skills
• Frequent contingent
• Responses to correct performance
• Praise Instruction
• Responses to skill errors
• Next time

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Coach Influence

• Evaluative feedback
• Quality appropriateness
• Praise
• For successful performance
• Reinforcing
• Criticism
• For performance errors
• Constructively questioning

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Contingent Appropriate Feedback

• Contingent
• specific to and directly related to level of
  performance

• Appropriate
• not giving excessive praise
• not giving praise for mediocre performance
• not giving praise for very simple tasks

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Coach Influence - feedback

• Positive approach
• strengthens desired behavior by motivating thru
  reinforcement
• focuses on correct performance praise,
  instruction, encouragement following skill errors
• Aversive approach
• eliminates undesirable behavior thru punishment
  and criticism
• focuses on performance errors arousing fear of
  failure

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Guidelines Positive Approach

• DO encourage immediately after a player makes a
  mistake
• DO provide instruction to help athletes improve
  on subsequent skill attempts

• DONT make negative remarks for performance
  errors
• DONT withhold praise for a good performance

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Take-Home Message
Give Appropriate Contingent Feedback
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Coach Influence

• Provide optimal challenges
• Provide informational feedback
• Provide evaluative feedback
• Provide a mastery climate
• Provide strategies for self-regulated learning

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Motivational Climate

• How is success defined?
• effort/improvement v. normative performance
• How are participants evaluated?
• What attitudes behaviors are valued?
• How are mistakes viewed?

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Climate Dimensions TARGET

• Task
• Authority
• Recognition
• Grouping
• Evaluation
• Time

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Mastery Motivational Climate

• Success valued behaviors defined in
  self-referenced terms
• Learning
• Effort
• Improvement
• Mistakes part of learning

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Performance Motivational Climate

• Success defined in norm-referenced terms
• Comparisons to teammates performances
• Game outcome

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Mastery v. Performance Climates

• Task (optimal challenges v. standardized)
• Authority (student choice v. coach-directed)
• Recognition (effort v. outcome)
• Grouping (cooperative v. competitive)
• Evaluation (improvement v. norm-referenced)
• Time (adequate for learning improvement)

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Mastery Climate Perceived Competence
Mastery Climate
Perceived Competence
Intrinsic Motivation
Effort Persistence
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Ingredients of Motivation
Coaches
Enjoyment
Perceived Competence
Parents
Motivation
Peers
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Coach Influence

• Provide optimal challenges
• Provide informational feedback
• Provide evaluative feedback
• Provide a mastery climate
• Provide strategies for self-regulated learning

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Creating Self-Regulated Learners

• Self-observation
• Monitoring ones behavior to assess progress
  toward goals
• Self-judgment
• Comparing ones current performance with desired
  goals
• Self-reinforcement
• Reacting positively or negatively concerning
  progress toward goal achievement

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Strategies for Self-Regulated Learning

• Goal-setting
• Evaluating progress making adjustments
• Re-framing negative to positive self-talk
• Maintaining a positive mental attitude
• Adopting effort attributions for performance
  setbacks
• Alternative strategies for problem solving

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Creating Positive Environments for Youth

• Provide optimal challenges
• Use the Positive Approach
• Develop a mastery climate
• Foster autonomy self-regulation

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CREATE YOUR POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT!