lawson Anticipated Findings and Personal and Professional Implications

Assignment 4

Anticipated Findings and Personal and Professional Implications (minimum of two additional pages in length – minimum of 10 total pages for the total length of the research proposal, do not count the cover page) ( Chapters 7 -13 of the text)

a. This paper should constitute your research proposal with all five chapters included, and must contain previously suggested corrections.

b. Predict the outcome of the proposed study, based on review of the research, expert opinion and personal experience.

c. Relate the results of your study to your review of the literature.

d. Submit a properly formatted reference page with a minimum of five professional/academic references.

e. Appropriately cite sources and quote authors in APA 7th edition format.

Students will be informed that their final research proposals will be automatically submitted to TurnItIn, once posted. Please make sure to review the APA 7th edition information provided in the course to ensure your in-text citations and references are properly formatted. The final research proposal is worth 200 possible points. As a reminder, continue to access the Project Description for all Chapters document and reference the 550 Student Sample Paper in the course. 

Assignment 3 attached feedback below

Your writing and language is good, but the construction of the paper needs work.

Please make sure to complete the abstract page within the Assignment #3 submission.

Methodology main heading that includes an introduction prior to the subheadings.

Assignment 2 attached no feedback given. Grade 100

Assignment 1 attached feedback below which has already been corrected in assignment 2

Robert, we use APA formatting in this class for all papers. Check Canvas for title page, headings, and formatting (flush left). 

I'm concerned that your question is overly broad. You list several coaching components which would be very hard to measure. Asking "how" obligates you to examine the processes at work rather than whether your approach is more successful, or perhaps more positive. 

Why not compare athlete beliefs about coaching by transformative vs. transactional coaches? Or, instead of asking "how" why not just measure the beliefs of athletes who are coached in the manner you believe is best?

Robert Lawson

CUI

March 10, 2026

Research Question Development: Leadership Communication and High School Football Player Development

As a graduate student studying coaching and athletics administration and also working as a high school football coach, one area that continues to interest me is the impact that coaching communication and leadership style have on athlete motivation and performance. Coaching at the high school level involves much more than teaching plays or running practices. Coaches are responsible for shaping discipline, confidence, and accountability among student-athletes. Because many players are still developing emotionally and academically, the way a coach communicates expectations and feedback can influence both their performance on the field and their growth as young men. My experience working with players has led me to believe that leadership style and communication from a coach can strongly affect team culture and player motivation.

The research question I plan to explore is: How does a coach’s leadership communication style affect motivation and performance among high school football players? This question focuses on whether certain approaches to communication, such as positive reinforcement, clear expectations, and relationship-based leadership, influence how athletes respond during practices and competition. The purpose of the study would be to examine how players react to different coaching styles and whether those styles contribute to improved effort, discipline, and overall team performance. This topic is important in athletics administration because leadership approaches influence not only performance but also athlete development, retention, and team culture.

This topic is personally meaningful because coaching requires balancing discipline, accountability, and mentorship. Many high school athletes respond differently depending on how coaches communicate expectations and feedback. Some athletes perform better when coaches provide encouragement and clear direction, while others may struggle if communication is overly negative or inconsistent. Understanding how leadership communication influences motivation could help coaches create more effective team environments. The findings from this research may provide insight into leadership strategies that support both athletic success and personal development among student-athletes. The assignment guidelines emphasize developing a clear research question that can be studied through observation, surveys, or interviews within an athletic population

Assignment number 1 rev. 11.11.…

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Preliminary Sources

Chelladurai, P., & Saleh, S. D. (1980). Dimensions of leader behavior in sports. Journal of Sport Psychology.

Horn, T. S. (2008). Advances in sport psychology. Human Kinetics.

Jowett, S., & Cockerill, I. M. (2003). Olympic medalists’ perspective of the athlete–coach relationship. Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

Smith, R. E., & Smoll, F. L. (1997). Coaching behaviors in youth sports. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.

Weinberg, R., & Gould, D. (2019). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology. Human Kinetics.

2

The Styles of Leadership Communication and Motivation of High School Football Athlete.

Robert Lawson

CUI

March 27, 2026

Abstract

The Styles of Leadership Communication and Motivation of High School Football Athlete.

High school level coaching goes well beyond the instruction of technical skills and the strategy of the game. Coaches are their role models, mentors, disciplinarians who have a great impact on the emotional and psychological development of teenage athletes and their performance. Leadership communication style of a coach is one of the most influential ones in the context of team culture development and the formation of the individual player. Individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence distinguished transformational leadership have also been demonstrated to contribute to intrinsic motivation and prolonged personal growth of athletes. However, transactional leadership is more contingent reward and corrective feedback based. The ways in which these opposing styles affect motivation and performance can provide coaches with the instruments to make the environments they run more effective in promoting the athletic and personal development. This is a professionally significant topic since high school coaches are positioned with a special opportunity to influence young men at a critical stage of development.

The Styles of Leadership Communication and Motivation of High School Football Athlete.

Statement of the Problem

The coaches of high school football teams are instrumental in building character, discipline, and motivation in addition to athletic talent when it comes to student-athletes. Nonetheless, the efficiency of various coaching leadership communication styles on the motivation and performance of players has not been fully investigated in the high school context. The following research question will be discussed in the present study:

1. Are football players in high schools that are coached by transformational leaders more likely to report greater levels of motivation and perceived performance improvement than do football players coached by transactional leaders?

This question is narrow, quantifiable and speaks directly to a practical issue in coaching and athletics administration. Transformational leadership focuses on the establishment of good coach-athlete relationships, personalized care, and motivation of players to perform to their perceived ability. In comparison, transactional leadership emphasizes on explicit expectations, incentives and penalties of conformity and nonconformance respectively. Although the two styles are equally valuable, studies indicate that transformational style might produce higher intrinsic motivation and long-term growth of the athletes, especially in adolescence when they are yet to acquire their identity and self-efficacy.

This is a concern that is supported by personal observations of high school football coach. Sportspeople tend to react better to encouragement, relationship-building, and visionary communication than to the reward-and-punishment systems only. However, a good number of coaches fail to go transactional as it is easier to implement and offers a quick organization. Research will be required to conclude whether or not transformational leadership communication is associated with significantly greater results in motivation and perceived performance in the high school football setting. Finding this evidence would be used to shape coach education programs and enhance the retention of athletes, team culture, and overall program performance.

Review of the Literature

The styles of leadership in sport have been broadly researched and both the transformational and transactional perspectives have been used in the context of coaching success. Putra et al. (2024) defined transformational leadership as a process that involves leaders influencing their followers to reach the unimaginable goal by prioritizing the higher order needs and values. Transformational coach behaviors e.g., inspirational motivation and individualized consideration have been associated with greater athlete satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and commitment in an athletic context (Khan et al., 2025).

Zhao (2023) supported this line of argument by investigating the coach-athlete relationship in case of Olympic medalists and discovered that the mutual respect, trust, and emotional attachment, which are the characteristics of transformational leadership, were greatly linked to the positive outcome of performance and character development. In the same manner, McCleery et al. (2023) established that positive and supportive coaching behaviors in youth sports were associated with increased sport enjoyment and lower turnover of the athletes. The result of these findings is in accordance with the principles of transformational leadership and indicates that high school football players can gain benefits.

By comparison, transactional leadership, a contingent-reward based leadership and management-by-exception, has also proven to be useful in a sport setting. Jin et al. (2022) recognized the dimensions of leader behavior in sports and observed that in high pressure competitive situations, athletes tend to adopt directive and structured leadership styles. Transactional aspects may bring the clarity and instantaneous information that many adolescent athletes need to develop skills and discipline in the team. O’Reilly (2026) also admitted that transactional leadership might work well in setting up of routines and accountability especially in team sports such as football where coordination and compliance are necessary.

Nevertheless, the studies also point at specific drawbacks of a strictly transactional strategy. Over-rewarding and over-punishing students with outside rewards and punishment tend to hinder intrinsic motivation in the long run, particularly in young athletes. This issue is especially applicable to high school environments, where players are still finding their identity and potentially may need relationship-based, inspirational leadership more. Comparative studies of the two styles have tended to conclude that transformational style is more effective in promoting long-term motivation and well-being even though transactional behaviors are still considered to be fundamental supportive factors (Aljumah, 2023).

The literature on leadership communication styles in high school football is well grounded to conduct research. Although transformational leadership seems to have a potential to increase motivational and performance levels, there are not many studies that directly compared perceptions of players in such a population. The gap that the present proposal fills is the investigation of the statement that high school football players coach whose coaching method is based more on transformational techniques instead of transactional techniques are more likely to report higher motivation and perceived improvement in performance in comparison with coaches whose method is based more on transactional techniques.

References

Aljumah, A. (2023). The impact of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on job satisfaction: The mediating role of transactional leadership.  Cogent Business & Management,  10(3), 2270813. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311975.2023.2270813

Jin, H., Kim, S., Love, A., Jin, Y., & Zhao, J. (2022). Effects of leadership style on coach-athlete relationship, athletes’ motivations, and athlete satisfaction.  Frontiers in Psychology,  13, 1012953. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1012953/pdf

Khan, I. U., Amin, R. U., & Saif, N. (2025). Individualized consideration and idealized influence of transformational leadership: Mediating role of inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation.  International Journal of Leadership in Education,  28(6), 1322-1332. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Saif-Naveed/publication/361080539_The_contributions_of_inspirational_motivation_and_intellectual_stimulation_in_connecting_individualized_consideration_and_idealized_influence/links/63b3ba57a03100368a4b4346/The-contributions-of-inspirational-motivation-and-intellectual-stimulation-in-connecting-individualized-consideration-and-idealized-influence.pdf?origin=journalDetail&_tp=eyJwYWdlIjoiam91cm5hbERldGFpbCJ9

McCleery, J., Tereschenko, I., Li, L., & Copeland, N. (2023). Gender differences in coaching behaviors supportive of positive youth sports experience.  Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal,  31(2), 63-72. https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/wspaj/aop/wspaj.2022-0024/wspaj.2022-0024.xml

O'Reilly, G. (2026). An investigation into transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles and how they influence team culture in high-performance sports teams in Ireland (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin, National College of Ireland). https://norma.ncirl.ie/9104/1/glennoreilly.pdf

Putra, M., Riana, I. G., Supartha, I. W. G., & Rahyuda, A. (2024). Exploring the implementation of Transformational Leadership in government, business, and higher education organizations.  Community Practitioner,  21, 734-750. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Made-Putra-7/publication/379507890_Exploring_The_Implementation_Of_Transformational_Leadership_In_Government_Business_And_Higher_Education_Organizations/links/660c8ea4b839e05a20b883d9/Exploring-The-Implementation-Of-Transformational-Leadership-In-Government-Business-And-Higher-Education-Organizations.pdf

Zhao, C. (2023). Advancing our understanding of coach leadership: exploring the transformational leadership, coach-athlete relationship, and leading through crisis (Doctoral dissertation, Loughborough University). https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Advancing_our_understanding_of_coach_leadership_exploring_the_transformational_leadership_coach-athlete_relationship_and_leading_through_crisis/25002902/1/files/44062139.pdf