Transformational leadership in sport coaching:

Leadership in sports coaching plays a crucial role in enhancing athlete performance and team well-being. This study aims to identify key themes in sports coaching leadership usingbibliometric analysis supported by VOSviewer software. The analysis results reveal eight main clusters, including athlete leadership, motivational climate, team cohesion, and athletes' mentalhealth. Each cluster highlights the strong relationship between coaching leadership styles and athletes' experiences and performance. Leadership styles such as transformational leadership and servant leadership have been found to contribute positively to athletes' motivation, satisfaction, and mental well-being, whereas unsupportive approaches are oftenassociated with burnout. Additionally, the bibliometric analysis identifies the significant contributions of leading authors and countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States inthis research field. This study emphasizes the importance of a holistic leadership approach that focuses not only on technical strategies but also on athletes' psychological well-being to achieve optimal performance.

This study aims to identify and map the factors that influence the perception of sports coach performance based on published research results. The research design used is a scoping review, which allows researchers to explore key concepts and existing empirical evidence, while identifying gaps in the literature. The literature was obtained through a systematic search in the PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases, with keywords such as "coach performance", "perception", "sports coach", and "factors influencing". The articles analyzed were limited to publications in 2020–2024, in English, open access and were scientific articles. The results of this study found 8 articles, showing that the perception of coach performance is influenced by various factors such as leadership style, technical competence, coach personality, quality of coach-athlete relationship, communication strategy, and collaboration with the performance support team. A transformative and communicative leadership style, positive interpersonal relationships, and proper training planning have been shown to increase athletes' positive perceptions of coaches. These findings emphasize the importance of a holistic approach to evaluating coach performance, which includes technical, social, and emotional skills. This research is expected to be the basis for developing more effective sports coaches that are oriented towards the welfare and performance of athletes.

Background Provided that coaches play a key role in shaping the sport experiences of athletes with a disability, they represent an important point of intervention for enhancing the quality of athletes’ participation in disability sport. Despite the importance of their role, few evidence-informed learning resources are available to support the development of disability sport coaches. Purpose The purpose of this study was to produce a novel evidence-informed learning tool for disability sport coaches in entry level and developmental coaching domains. The goal of this tool was to demonstrate and provide information about coach behaviours that facilitate quality experiences for athletes with disabilities. Methodology The format selected for this tool was a creative nonfiction (i.e. an evidence-informed story). Using the Knowledge to Action Framework as a guide, the tool was developed through a four-stage process: (1) identifying and creating primary sources of knowledge through a literature review and original research; (2) synthesizing primary sources of knowledge to select target behaviours and behavioural determinants; (3) crafting the story to demonstrate and provide information about target behaviours and related outcomes; and (4) obtaining feedback from stakeholders (i.e. disability sport athletes, coaches, and administrators) to tailor the knowledge included in the story to the appropriate context. Findings In the first stage, 23 studies focused on quality experiences and/or coaches in disability sport were identified through a review of the literature. The findings of these studies were combined with the results of three original studies conducted by the research team. A synthesis of these findings resulted in the selection of two behavioural determinants (confidence and attitudes) and 13 coach behaviours (aligning with transformational leadership theory) for inclusion in the tool (Stage 2). The story that formed the basis for the tool was crafted in Stage 3, which combined the behaviours and behavioural determinants identified in Stage 2 with a plotline, setting, and characters based on the experience of the first author and stakeholder input. The tool was revised several times to incorporate stakeholder feedback in Stage 4. Implications This paper describes the development of a practical resource for coaches and coach educators in disability sport. As such, we provide a detailed and rigorous procedure for translating evidence into a narrative format with the potential for application in diverse learning contexts. In addition, we reviewed and synthesized evidence that may contribute to enhanced theoretical understandings of coaching effectiveness in disability sport. Taken together, the information presented in this paper offers important theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for researchers, coaches, and coach developers in disability sport.