| Abstract | The purpose of this study is to identify the influence of coaching style on overall mental toughness in high school baseball players. This is a step toward understanding the influence coaches have on the mental toughness of their athletes. Overall mental toughness was measured using the MTQ-18, a revised version of the MTQ-48 questionnaire. Coaching style was measured using the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) questionnaire. Pearson product correlation was used to examine the relationship between the five different dimensions of coaching style and athletes’ overall mental toughness scores. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, median, mode, and range were also used to analyze the data. Although some variation existed, all of the teams had similar descriptive scores. No statistical significance was observed between mental toughness and the five dimensions of coaching style. After deconstructing mental toughness scores, none of the four dimensions of mental toughness had a statistically significant relationship with the dimensions of coaching style. Future research involving coaching style should investigate fluctuations in mental toughness throughout the sport season or attempt to quantify how much influence a coach can have on the mental toughness of their players. |
