Coaches’ attitudes towards deception in sports activities

Abstract

While analyzing conception of deception in sport the aim of the present study was to establish the attitudes of coaches towards the spread of deception and its justification in sports activities. The data were gathered on a sample of 95 coaches (10 women and 85 men). 27 coaches (29,0%) had been working as coaches less than 5 years, 30 coaches (32,3%) – from six to ten years, 23 coaches (24,7%) – from 11 to 20 years, and the rest 13 coaches (14,0%) more than 20 years. Two coaches did not indicate the years of working experience. We applied a self-compiled questionnaire with 19 statements to evaluate the coaches’ attitudes towards deception in sport. The subjects had to evaluate how often the indicated behaviour occurred in sports using 5-point scale from 1 (it is not common in sports) to 5 (it often happens in sports). They also had to indicate the degree of how such behavior could be justified from 1 (the behaviour totally indefensible) to 5 (such behaviour can always be justified). Factor analyses revealed the five factors representing different forms of deception in sports activities: manipulating the results of the competition, provocation against the opponents, manipulation with the rules of sports contest, athletes’ role-playing for their own benefit, and manipulation of referees and organizers of competitions with the final results. The values of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of each factor were respectively 0,81; 0,80; 0,77; 0,67 and 0,64. Medium significant correlations were observed among them. [...]