A68: Volleyball Coaches' Leadership Behaviors and Athletes' Competition Anxiety
Authors: Yi Sixu , Wang Ke 
Published: February 2024

Purpose: Volleyball is not only a contest between technical and tactical levels, but also a duel between psychological and tactical aspects. Coaches' leadership behaviors play a key role in athletes' trust, team effectiveness and competition status. Coaches' leadership behaviors, as perceived from the athletes' perspective, have a greater impact on athletes' competition anxiety than the actual leadership behaviors of coaches. The purpose of this study was to examine how athletes perceived the possible role of coaches' leadership behaviors on college men's volleyball players' competition anxiety and the possible mediating effect of athletic self-confidence in it was examined. Methods: 216 athletes from 18 teams in the Men's Preliminary Volleyball Event of the Fourteenth Student Games of the People's Republic of China in 2020 were selected for the study. The questionnaire contained the Coaches' Leadership Behavior Scale, the Sports Competition State Anxiety Scale-2, and the Sports Self-Esteem Scale. The data collected were tested for reliability and validity and factor analysis using SPSS25.0 statistical software; structural equation model construction, goodness-of-fit tests, validation factor analysis and mediating effect tests were conducted using AMOS22.0 software. Results: (1) Positive feedback behavior by coaches had a significant negative effect on competition anxiety (standardized path coefficient of -0.205) and sport confidence mediated the effect value between the two -0.098 (32.3% of the total effect); (2) Socially supportive behavior had a significant negative effect on competition anxiety (standardized path coefficient of -0.294) and sport confidence mediated the effect value between the two -0.163 (35.7% of the total effect); (3) Coaches' authoritarian behavior had a significant positive effect on athletes' competition anxiety (standardized path coefficient 0.090). Sport confidence mediated the effect value between the two 0.059 (39.6% of the total effect); (4) Athletes' perceived training instructional behaviors had a significant negative effect on competition anxiety (standardized path coefficient of -0.261) and sport confidence mediated the effect value between the two -0.339 (56.5% of the total effect). Conclusion: (1) Among the five dimensions of athletes' perceived coaches' leadership behaviors, college men's volleyball athletes' perceived coaches' training guidance behaviors, social support behaviors, and positive feedback behaviors significantly reduced their own competition anxiety status, but the degree of impact varied; (2) the pathway of athletic self-confidence of college men's volleyball athletes' impact on competition anxiety was verified, and it was found that athletic self-confidence significantly reduced athletes' competition anxiety to a greater extent; (3) sport self-confidence partially mediated the relationship between athletes' perceived positive feedback behaviors from coaches, training guidance behaviors, social support behaviors and authoritarian behaviors and athletes' competition anxiety.