the Relationship among Controlling Coach Behaviors, Psychological Needs Thwarting, Sport Devaluation and Intention to Continue Sport Participation in Adolescent Athletes

The purpose of this research was to investigate the causal relationships among controlling coach behaviors, psychological needs thwarting, and in turn, sport devaluation and Intention to continue sport participation in adolescent athletes. The method of this research was descriptive-correlation. 350 Adolescent athletes of Tabriz city (185 male and 165 female) with age range from 15-18 years old were selected by random cluster sampling and completed the questionnaires. The path analysis results showed that controlling coach behaviors indirectly and through the psychological needs thwarting predicts positively sport devaluation. However, controlling coach behaviors is not related to intention to continue sport participation. Also psychological needs thwarting positively predicts sport devaluation and negatively predicts intention to continue sport participation. Overall, these findings indicate the important role of controlling coach behaviors and psychological factors in sport participation related factors of Adolescent Athletes.