J. Swimming Research, Vol. 22:1 (2014) Why Coaches should Encourage Swimmers’ Efforts to Succeed Bård Erlend Solstad and Pierre‐Nicolas Lemyre The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences Department of Coaching and Sport Psychology PO Box 4014 Ullevål Stadion 0806 Oslo, Norway ABSTRACT Achievement Goal Theory (AGT; 11, 21) assumes that properties of the achievement situation in which swimmers find themselves are central to the motivation process. The premise of this line of research is that athletes’ experiences in sports and their interpretation of those experiences influence the degree to which a mastery‐involving motivational climate or an ego‐involving motivational climate are perceived as salient. Thus, the focus of the current study was to assess how mastery‐involving or ego‐involving motivational climates arise from different types of coaching behaviors. Additionally, we examined how perceived motivational climates, associated to different coaching behaviors, influenced important parameters, such as intrinsic motivation, subjective well‐being, and athlete burnout. Participants were 202 swimmers (range 14‐24, M = 16.4, SD = 2.3), who represented competitive levels from novice competitors to world championship athletes, but where the majority of the athletes had competed up to the national level. Results revealed that swimmers perceived a mastery‐involving climate when their coaches emphasized positive reinforcement, mistake‐contingent encouragement, corrective instruction given in a positive and encouraging fashion, and proper technical instruction. On the other hand, coaching behavior emphasizing punitive technical instruction was associated with the perception of an ego‐involving climate on the swim team. Further, analyses revealed a positive association between the perception of an ego‐involving climate and symptoms of athlete burnout, while the perception of a mastery‐involving climate was associated with higher levels of intrinsic motivation and subjective well‐being. INTRODUCTION Previous studies have demonstrated that the coach is considered the architect of the motivational climate (29). In the context of swimming, if the coach creates a mastery‐ involving climate emphasizing the learning process, skill development, and personal improvement, then swimmers are more likely to be mastery‐involved. On the other hand, if the coach creates an ego‐involving climate emphasizing normative feedback, interpersonal competition, and public evaluation, then swimmers are more likely to be ego‐involved (11). The coach’s goal preference becomes obvious through choices of tasks, drills, and learning activities, whether swimmers are involved in decision making, how performances are evaluated and swimmers are divided into groups, and finally how feedback is given (21). Assessing the interaction between motivational dispositions and the coach‐created motivational climate, AGT argues that an individual’s desire to develop and demonstrate competence or ability is the energizing construct of an achievement behavior. Nicholls (11)