Leadership styles of coach's and their relationship to parent's selection process of private swimming pools facilities in Tainan City of Taiwan

From the point of view of the researcher, coaches' leadership styles affect consumers' decision-making power, relationships and competence. Thus, the researcher was interested in the different leadership styles of coaches. As a method of increasing the national standard of living, the government has allowed businessmen to open private swimming pool facilities. Therefore, parents have had a wide selection of swimming pool facilities to choose them. This study has investigated factors that cause parents to choose one swimming pool facility over another and which leadership style of coaches utilize in teaching swimming. This study will serve to advance the understanding of causal relationships among the consumers' participation motivation, consumers' satisfaction and the coaches' leadership styles to contribute to the professional literature related to the private swimming pool facilities in Tainan City in Taiwan.;Four self-constructed survey questionnaires were developed as instruments for data collection. The survey questionnaires were constructed based on the consultation of a five-member panel of experts. The researcher modified the survey questionnaires according to the suggestions of the experts. A pilot study was conducted to ensure the reliability of the research design and the validity of the instruments in this study.;The subjects in this study included four hundred and four respondents (N=404), all trainees' parents at one of the swimming courses at the private swimming pools during the period between August 4 to August 16 in 2008. Due to the fact that the target population was not controlled easily, the researcher adopted convenience sampling for this study. After examining all of the questionnaires, 436 of the questionnaires were retrieved, 163 from males and 273 from females. Thirty-two questionnaires were invalid because of skipped answers. Therefore, 404 valid questionnaires were retrieved, 150 from males and 254 from females, which was 93% of all of the questionnaires. The Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS), version 15.0 for Windows was employed to conduct a statistical analysis. An alpha level of p < .05 was used throughout this study.;According to the results of this study, as it related to consumers' participation motivation, the influence of others factor had the highest score, at 4.05. That means parents took notice of this factor. This factor included the recommendation of friends, the performance of the swimming course and the participation of friends' children, etc. For consumers' satisfaction, the promotion factor had the highest score, at 4.02. Due to global economic reductions, the Taiwanese economic situation has not been as good as in the past. As the economic impact must be considered, the parents indicated that they paid special attention to promotions. For the coaches' leadership styles, the democratic leadership style factor had the highest score, at 3.95. The results of the study found that the democratic leadership teaching style was suitable for elementary schools teaching swimming.;This study also utilized a one-way ANOVA to find results that indicated many significant differences, primarily in the image factor (15). That meant the swimming pool facilities need a good image in Taiwan City to attract more consumers who want to learn to swim. The last finding was correlated among participation motivation, satisfaction and the coaches' leadership style, the results of the study showed that participation motivation, satisfaction and the coaches' leadership style correlated, and the coefficient was a positive correlation. When the consumers' participation motivation factors increased, the consumers' satisfaction and the coaches' leadership style factors increased. The consumers' satisfaction and the coaches' leadership style had a correlation, and the coefficient was a positive correlation. When the satisfaction factors increased, the coaches' leadership style factors increased.;Finally, the researcher hopes that the various findings may be used to help other, similar studies, perhaps in other cities and counties as a means of assessing the needs of private swimming pool facilities in Taiwan.