Accountability systems and instructional approaches in youth volleyball training

The purpose of this study was to examine accountability systemsoperating in youth volleyball training sessions and to understandhow those systems vary according to the instructional tasks andthe nature of the information provided by coaches. additionally,the interactive effect of the players’ age group on accountabilitysystems and instructional tasks will be inspected. twenty-eightyouth volleyball coaches (for under 14s and under 18s) wereobserved, one training session each. systematic observationstrategies were used to describe and analyse task presentationand task structure during practice. results convey that the accountabilitysystems implemented by coaches were mainlyimplicit and governed by opportunity rather than explicit performancecriteria imparted in task presentation. remarks on thequality of performance only occurred during ongoing practice.more often than not coaches showed no reaction when athletesdid not accomplish the tasks, failing to convey consequentialexpectancy-demand-monitoring messages. the instructionalapproach was predominantly composed of informing tasks, oftechnical nature and general information, which can reflect atechnique and generalist coach profile. these results indicate thepresence of weak and ambiguous accountability system, alsocorroborated by positive correlations of extending tasks with thecategory without exigency task presentation as well as with noreaction to unaccomplished tasks. there were no notoriousdifferences in accountability behaviours between players’ agegroup.