Full Length Research Article - (2023) Volume 18, Issue 2

Constructing of A Competition Communication Skills Scale for the Elite and First Division Handball League Coaches

Keywords

Sport psychology, Competition communication skills, Handball coaches

Introduction

Leadership is one of the important processes that need the right decisions to achieve the goals planned by officials. Communication is a social process through which the interaction takes place between two parties, the first is the sender, and the second is the role of the receiver. The message sent carries meanings that have been understood or agreed upon in advance. Communication is a process by which information, meanings and ideas are transferred from one person to another person or others to achieve the set goals. The sender cannot send a message without implying a purpose or reason (Muhammed and Mahdi, 1993). They have stated that the communication process of a group, whatever its activity, should takes place between its sections and its members. Communication is divided into two parts, verbal and non-verbal, which is vital for different groups. Through communication, experiences can be gained, information communicated, and points of view among the various members of society. Studies have shown that only 7%-10% of our communication with others occurs through words, and the rest occurs through non-verbal language that includes: tone of voice, body language, and the way emotions are shown (Bakkar, 2012). Communication carries the meanings of influence and affected, and it seems clear in the sports field. The psychological aspect plays an important role in the personality of the coach (Tiba and Nidaa, 2021) pointed that the emotion serves the technical performance during training or the match The coach sends his message to influence the emotion and behavior of the team to achieve the goal, and at the same time the coach is affected by the needs and interests of the players. Handball is one of the collective games in which the performance of the players during the competition is affected by many psychological variables, including communication skills, which is based on the quality of the relationship that brings together the coach and the players. The coach is the communication center in the training process. The best way to deal with players requires behavior based on accumulated experience, which will determine how the player receives the guidance sent by the coach. Accumulated experience, as well as choosing the correct method of leadership style, is what is required for the success of the interaction process, which will reflect positively on the players' application of offensive and defensive tactics during the match. It shows us the importance of communication and the importance of knowing the coache's possession of communication skills. He is usually the center of attention in the team. As he is the person who sets the team’s goals and plans for its actions and the players to implement them (Abdul Bari and others, 1994). Hence the importance of the research stems from the fact that a measure of communication skills will be built during the competition for elite and first division handball league coaches.

Methods

A descriptive approach was adopted to establish the proposed scale. Algabri and Jwad (2021) indicate that the descriptive approach is one of the forms of organized scientific analysis of interpretation to describe a specific phenomenon or problem and depict it quantitatively by collecting data and standardized information.

Participants

The research sample consisted of 294 players were chosen in accordance with the intentional selection method. This number represents 84.97 percent of the total number of players in the elite and first division handball league clubs in Iraq (346) as shown in table 1 (Table 1).

Scale procedures

This study was formulated to include 50 items, 10 items for each field, and adopted a four-graded scale to measure the responses of the players, the alternative response were (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never) and relevant weights respectively were (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (Likert, 1931). The Likert method of measurement was used for the following reasons:

• It is an easy and highly stable method that accurately determines the degree of attitude of the responding individual towards the problem (Zidan,1965).

• Characterized by easy correction and construction, and due to the large number of response alternatives, the answer is accurate (Jaber 1976).

All the scale’s items of were positive.

Validity

Validity is one of the most important psychometric characteristics and basic indicators for any measuring tool or testing of a specific subject, to confirm if the scale has well achieved the purpose for which it was developed and to measure the trait that was prepared to measure and without affected by other variables (Mustafa and others, 2000).

The scale was presented to a committee consisting of 11 specialized experts to ensure the validity of the paragraphs and their measurement of CCS. Some paragraphs were excluded, others were amended. The paragraphs that obtained the approval of 8 experts or more were kept. 5 paragraphs were excluded, and the total items of the scale were 45 items as shown in table 2 (Table 2).

Discriminatory Power

Discriminatory Power (DP) is the ability of a scale to differentiate significantly between categorical scale responses i.e. the ability to differentiate between individuals who get high or low scores on the same scale. The Internal Consistency refers to the extent of homogeneity of the paragraphs in their measurement of the trait (Amatnius, 1996). In order to obtain the DP of the response, the data from the scale, which amounted to 294 questionnaires were emptied. The scores’ of responses were arranged in a descending order, 27% of the construction scale sample was extracted from each of the highest and lowest construction samples. The t-test for independent samples was used to test the extracted values of the discrimination coefficients for CCS scale. The final number of paragraphs of the scale was 40 for each of the four fields of the scale as shown in table 3 (Table 3).

Internal Consistency

Internal consistency coefficient was used to analyze the expressions of the scale and ensure the consistency of its paragraphs. Whenever the correlation coefficient is high between the score of each paragraph and the total score of the scale, this is an evidence of the availability of internal consistency (Farahat, 2001). The correlation coefficient was calculated by using Pearson correlation coefficient (r). If the correlation coefficient rises, it indicates the a scale of consistency. The validity of the scale increases by excluding the items with poor correlation with the total score of the field. The statistically significant (P<0.05) results of the 40 paragraphs confirmed the appropriateness and internal consistency of the scale. It has also been found that there was a significant (P<0.05) correlation between the score of each paragraph and the total score of the field (Table 4).

Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to determine the correlation between the score of each field and the total score of the scale to ensure that the scale is more comprehensive, as shown in table 5 (Table 5).

Reliability

The reliability coefficient was calculated 13 days after the first application by using the test-retest method (J. Blanchard and S. Brown 1998). The reliability coefficient in this method gives the reliability of the results provided by the scale during a specific period of time, and its value was 0.81, which is statistically significant at the level (P< 0.05), as shown in table 6 (Table 6).

The reliability was also confirmed by calculating the reliability coefficient using the Cronbach’s alpha formula (Gliem and Gliem, 2003) for the fields. Nunnly (1978) indicated that the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient provides an acceptable estimate of the reliability of the scale, and the reliability coefficients that range between 0.50 – 0.60 are considered acceptable. It has also been stated that it is an indicator of equivalence as it gives a good estimated value for the coefficient of equivalence, in addition to the internal consistency or homogeneity (Hussein and Fouad 2021). The reliability coefficient of the fields ranged between 0.79 – 0.82. The total score for all items was 0.81. These results were considered all acceptable as shown in table 7 (Table 7).

Conclusions

This study has been concluded that:

• Construction of the scale is suitable for measuring CCS of Elite and First Division Handball League coaches.

• The four fields were well represented to measure CCS of Elite and First Division Handball League coaches.

• Likert alternative answers were suitable for the sample to choose answers.

• Cronbach's alpha reliability test was appropriate to extract the reliability coefficient.

• The number of paragraphs were appropriate and easy when applied to get the response to the questionnaires regarding the scale.

• The 40 paragraphs of the constructed scale were appropriate for the response time.

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