Meta-analysis of researches on relationship between coaches’ democratic leadership style with athletes’ satisfaction

Coach leadership style can be defined as the process of influencing the individual and group trying to achieve goals. Democratic styles are behaviors that allow the athlete to participate in group decisions. The authoritarian style, on the other hand, involves the coach making independent decisions based on his personal authority. Athlete satisfaction is considered as a consequence or achievement of the coach's work in leadership research. The present study aims to quantitatively combine the results of research conducted in this field in the country.

The statistical population of the present study includes all articles on the relationship between democratic leadership style and athlete satisfaction and in order to collect the data needed for meta-analysis, a coding form was used. Using meta-analysis method and comprehensive meta-analysis software (CMA2), 7 articles were selected and reviewed. This study was performed using the effect size calculation technique. In this way, the statistical tests used in the hypotheses were analyzed after becoming the effect size. The statistical population of the present study included all articles on the relationship between democratic leadership style and athlete satisfaction. In this meta-analysis, the results of researches that have met the necessary conditions in terms of methodology have been studied. That is, articles and criteria within the treasure have been used. These criteria in the research are: 1 research has been done in Iran. 2 In the relevant research, leadership style and athletes' satisfaction have been used as an independent or dependent variable. 3 The research must have provided the necessary information for the practical extraction of the effect size (relationship strength). Therefore, the number of researches selected for meta-analysis is seven.

The results of meta-analysis showed that in all studies, democratic leadership style and satisfaction were effective, which software output with an average effect size of 0.25 confirms this issue and this amount of effect size is less than average. The funnel diagram also showed that there is a publication bias in the studies, which indicates that some studies have not been published or researchers do not have access to some articles or study results. The relationship between democratic leadership style and athlete satisfaction is below average. About 25% of the calculated effects are in the lower middle class (with an average effect size of 0.25).

The findings of this meta-analysis showed that democratic leadership style and athlete satisfaction have an effect with an average effect size of 0.25.