Background and Objective

This study aims to provide fundamental knowledge on approaches to enhance the performance of Taekwondo players by validating how the coach–athlete interaction aff ects perceived performance, and how its eff ect varies between gyeorugi (sparring) and poomsae.

Materials and Methods

A survey was conducted on 394 Taekwondo players from universities located in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, and Chungnam, all of which are offi cial members of the Korea Taekwondo Association as of 2016. Participants were selected through purposive sampling, a type of non-probability sampling. Subsequently, 382 of 394 respondents, excluding 12 respondents who did not return the questionnaires, were selected for data collection (gyeorugi: n =180 and poomsae: n = 202; 230 [60.2%] men and 152 [39.8%] women).

Results

Coach–athlete interaction had a statistically positive infl uence on perceived performance of University Tae-kwondo players (p < 0.05). Furthermore, coach–athlete interaction showed a greater impact on perceived performance in a group of gyeorugi players than in their poomsae counterparts (19.6% vs. 6.5%). The result of pairwise parameter comparison exceeded the critical value (±1.96: α = 0.05; ±2.58: α = 0.01), suggesting that the eff ect of coach–athlete interaction was statistically signifi cant at a 99% confi dence level.

Conclusion

These results indicated that in Taekwondo training, coach–athlete interactions including instruction on technique, faith, encouragement, and passing on know-how were more eff ective in enhancing the performance of gyeorugi players than poomsae players.