Coaching efficacy, moral disengagement, and responses to hostile aggression among high school coaches:

This mixed-methods study examined the association between high school sport coaches’ moral disengagement and their perceived coaching efficacy, and began to explore coaches’ justifications of and consequences for the hostile aggression exhibited by their athletes. High school coaches in the United States (N = 449) completed online surveys that included the Moral Disengagement in Sport Scale, Coaching Efficacy Scale II-High School Teams, and questions regarding their beliefs about and responses to athlete’s hostile aggressive behaviors. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine the association between coaches’ moral disengagement and their perceived coaching efficacy, and multiple analysis of variance explored differences in moral disengagement and coaching efficacy based on coaches’ justifications for athletes’ hostile aggression. Qualitative analyses involved coding coaches’ responses to questions of when they believed hostile aggression displayed by athletes was justified, and their t...