Predicting athlete burnout in relation to types of motivation, self-efficacy, and relationship with the coach

Objectives: Burnout is one of the factors that threaten sports participation. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to investigate the relationship between motivation and burnout, in relation to the athlete's self-efficacy and the coach's controlling behavior.
Methods & Materials: The present research was a descriptive correlational study of university athletes, from which 15 teams were selected by cluster sampling. 184 athletes in the age range of 18 to 25 years participated in the research. Questionnaires on sports self-efficacy, behavioral regulations, coach-controlling behavior, and sports burnout were used. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and linear regression in SPSS23 software and LISREL 8.8.
Results: The results showed that burnout had a positive relationship with being judged and personal control, amotivation and external motivation, and a negative and significant relationship with self-efficacy. It was also shown that self-efficacy and control with reward have a positive relationship with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In addition, personal control and being judged also showed a positive relationship with intrinsic motivation. The path analysis model showed that about 50% of the variability of burnout is explained by self-efficacy, personal control, judgment, amotivation, and extrinsic motivation.
Conclusions: It was identified that amotivation is the most important and strongest factor in influencing athletes’ burnout. The results were discussed using theories related to burnout in sports, self-efficacy, autonomous motivation, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.