The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe the role of the goals in coaching with focus on their form and their possible impact on the coaching process. The topic of the goals is presented from the several perspectives that are confronted each other. The thesis has two parts - the theoretical one and the empirical one. In the theoretical part of the work are defined the concepts that are related to the topic, described psychological principles and essence of coaching, clarified the role of the goals in coaching, summarized the psychological approaches in coaching, discussed possible negative consequences of the goals in coaching and at the end of the theoretical part is given a brief overview of current research of this topic. The second, empirical part is following by theoretical part. The research design is characterized by the quantitative research, where is mapped the goal orientation of the coaches and then their attitudes to work with the goals. The target group of the research are certified professional coaches in the Czech republic. The data collection is realized by the administration of a self- assessment questionnaire. Questions in the questionnaire are related to how coaches set the goals with coachees, how do they evaluate the goals during the cooperation and how do they percieve...

Achievement motivation theory suggests there are two primary approaches to achievement tasks: to appear competent or to develop a skill. These two different approaches to performance yield different affective and behavioral responses. Athletes holding a performance goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with behaviors exemplifying learned helplessness and increased anxiety. Athletes holding a mastery goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with greater effort and experience less sport-related anxiety. Individual athlete factors, such as grit, mindfulness, and achievement orientation may influence how athletes experience their environment and their levels of sport anxiety, and may interact with athletes' achievement motives to influence performance. I used hierarchical multiple regressions to test the main effects of feedback and mindfulness, and feedback and goal orientation, to determine if either mindfulness or goal orientation moderated the effects of feedback on performance. I also used simple regression to determine the relative predictive strength of mindfulness, grit, and goal orientation on athletes' experience of sport anxiety. Mindfulness, but not goal orientation, was a significant moderator of the feedback-shooting performance relationship, but particularly for athletes low in mindfulness; mastery-goal orientation, independently of feedback, was also a significant predictor of task performance. Mindfulness also emerged as the strongest predictor of reduced sport anxiety. These results suggest that, for athletes low in mindfulness, mastery-involving feedback may be especially helpful. Further, mindfulness may also reduce athlete's sport-related concentration disruption, worry, and somatic anxiety.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the readiness characteristics that determine risk for either failure or withdrawal before students enter university. These relationships are investigated and explained with a literature discussion that includes readiness for university education, student transition, retention and withdrawal theory. The motivation for this research emanates against the challenges that the South African Higher Education in general faces as well as the demands placed on the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences to supply for the high demand for well equipped financial service professionals. The research project was completed in three phases. In the first phase a structured questionnaire was developed to measure the non-cognitive factors relating to readiness for university education. The purpose of the ‘Academic Readiness Questionnaire’ is to function as a screening test for first-year students that enter university. The Academic Readiness Questionnaire went through a scientific process of test development and standardisation. The overall Cronbach’s alpha for the questionnaire is 0.87, which indicates good internal consistency reliability for the scale with this sample. In the second phase the Academic Readiness Questionnaire was administered to the 2008 cohort of first-time entering students from the faculty of Economic and Management Sciences during the first-year orientation week. The total number of students in the sample is 829 students. In the third phase the students who withdrew from their studies were interviewed telephonically. A total of 42 students were interviewed to determine the salient reasons for withdrawal. Quantitative data were analysed using various descriptive and inferential statistical methods. These include factor analysis, regression analysis and multiway frequency analysis. The telephonic interviews were analysed with content analysis. The main findings reveal that the readiness characteristics show a direct relationship with academic success and intention to withdraw. The number of variables able to predict risk for either failure or withdrawal differ. More variables show a significant relationship with risk for failure than for withdrawal. Furthermore, the research results show that African students have higher academic achievement and are less likely to withdraw, when compared to white students. African students also tend to have higher academic success, compared to white students. The differences in academic success and withdrawal rates among African and white students are due to high school achievement and the number of credits the students register for. White students are also more likely to withdraw voluntarily, mostly within the first couple of weeks or months mainly due to choosing an incorrect study choice. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

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Mentoring relationships can have both costs and benefits for mentors and their proteges. The present research examined the degree to which mentors' perceived costs and benefits affect the functional and dysfunctional mentoring they provide to their proteges. Additionally, I investigated whether mentor-perceived costs and benefits were associated with the mentors' own goal orientation and the goal orientation of their proteges. Data were collected from 86 proteges and their current supervisory mentors. Consistent with expectations, when mentors reported greater costs of embarrassment associated with their relationship, the proteges reported receiving greater dysfunctional mentoring. Proteges who reported receiving greater functional mentoring tended to have mentors who perceived greater benefits of mentoring them. Both proteges and mentor goal orientations demonstrated significant correlations with mentor-perceived costs and benefits of their relationships. Implications for training and reinforcing functional mentoring will be discussed.

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Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka sambanden mellan variablerna psykologisk trygghet, motivationsklimat, målorientering och upplevd förmåga hos idrottare genom att variablerna upplevt motivationsklimat, upplevd målorientering och upplevd förmåga studeras utifrån hur de predicerar (uttalar sig om) psykologisk trygghet. Studien utgick från en kvantitativ forskningsmetod och samlade in data med hjälp av ett digitalt frågeformulär. Sammanlagt deltog 109 aktiva idrottare i studien med ett åldersspann mellan 18-56 år (M = 27.21, SD = 8.54). Deltagarna var aktiva på elitnivå (professionell-/yrkesmässig nivå), semi-elitnivå (inte elit- eller yrkesmässig nivå men tävlar och satsar mot elitnivå) eller som motionär (aktivt idrottar någon/några gånger i veckan för nöjes skull). Resultatet utifrån en multipel regressionsanalys visade att ett upplevt uppgiftsorienterat motivationsklimat och upplevd förmåga var statistiskt signifikanta prediktorvariabler till psykologisk trygghet med positiva samband, samt att en upplevd ego-orienterad målorientering var en statistiskt signifikant prediktorvariabel till psykologisk trygghet med ett negativt samband. Ett upplevt resultatorienterat motivationsklimat och en upplevd uppgiftsorienterad målorientering visade sig inte vara statistiskt signifikanta prediktorvariabler till psykologisk trygghet. Resultatet visade även utifrån en tillhörande korrelationsanalys att det förekom flertalet statistiskt signifikanta korrelationer mellan variablerna med positiva respektive negativa samband. Slutsatsen som kan dras utifrån ovanstående resultat är att om idrottarna upplever ett uppgiftsorienterat motivationsklimat och en hög egen förmåga kan det bidra till en ökad upplevd psykologisk trygghet, och om idrottarna upplever en ego-orienterad målorientering och en låg upplevd förmåga kan det leda till en minskad upplevd psykologisk trygghet. / The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between the variables psychological safety, motivational climate, goal orientation and perceived ability in athletes, by studying how the variables motivational climate, goal orientation and perceived ability predicts psychological safety. The study was based on a quantitative research method and gathered data using a digital questionnaire. In total 109 active athletes participated in the study with an age span between 18-56 years (M = 27.21, SD = 8.54). The participants were active on elite level (professional level), semi-elite level (non-professional but competes and aims for elite level) or as an exerciser (actively sport some times a week for fun). The results of a multiple regression analysis revealed that a perceived task oriented motivational climate and perceived ability were statistically significant predictor variables to psychological safety with positive connections, and that a perceived ego oriented goal orientation was a statistically significant predictor variable to psychological safety with a negative connection. A perceived result oriented motivational climate and a perceived task oriented goal orientation showed not to be statistically significant predictor variables to psychological safety. The results also showed from a belonging correlation analysis that a majority of statistically significant correlations occurred between the variables with positive respective negative connections. The conclusion that can be drawn from the result above is that if the athletes perceives a task oriented motivational climate and a high own ability, it may contribute to an increased perceived psychological safety, and if the athletes perceives an ego oriented goal orientation and a low own ability it may lead to a decreased perceived psychological safety.

There is increasing recognition that informal learning is a crucial component of organizational functioning and a necessary complement to the formal training that employees receive. As jobs evolve and demand more complex skills, workers must use informal learning to adapt to ever-changing work requirements. Informal learning is often dependent on voluntary knowledge sharing behavior, as evident among members of mastermind groups or communities of practice. In order to assist organizations, researchers must seek to understand the factors that motivate employees to engage in knowledge sharing behavior. Empirical research on knowledge sharing is nascent. There exists only a handful of quantitative studies examining organizational factors (e.g., rewards) and individual factors (e.g., learning goal orientation and personality) as they relate to knowledge sharing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. This body of work is also muddied by inconsistent operationalizations of constructs and a lack of an organizing framework. For instance, rewards have been popularly discussed and implemented as tools for incentivizing employees to perform. However, research has produced mixed findings regarding its effects on knowledge sharing behavior in organizations. There has also been a variety of different rewards examined without clear consistency in the results. The present study addressed several research needs of this area. First, two separate samples were used to assess the psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and factor structure) of new measurement instruments developed for rewards, knowledge sharing behavior, and organizational learning culture. Item content validation was performed with 14 subject matter experts. Scale dimensionality was established using exploratory factor analysis with data from a sample of 230 university students and confirmatory factor analysis with data from a second sample of 569 participants. Hypothesized relationships among dimensions of constructs as well as moderators were examined using regression analyses. Results did not support the popularly conjectured intrinsic versus extrinsic distinction between rewards. Results showed that rewards predicted knowledge asking but did not predict knowledge giving behavior. Non-financial rewards were found to vary in motivational value for knowledge giving depending on an individual’s career stage. Three dimensions of goal orientation exhibited differential relationships with knowledge sharing behavior. Finally, this study demonstrated that the negative relationship between performance avoid orientation and knowledge giving was attenuated in a strong organizational learning culture, providing empirical support for the situational strength theory. The findings from this work can inform organizational decision makers of how to harness the motivational value of rewards by understanding the career concerns of employees. This work also contributes by identifying person and situation factors that interact to facilitate a crucial kind of informal learning activity, knowledge sharing behavior in organizations.