The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of elementary school students on the leading style of swimming coach and satisfaction level and how background variation may lead to different outcomes. The study subjects are elementary schoolchildren in fourth to sixth grade who attend swimming lessons at a private teaching pool in Taichung County. 650 questionnaires were distributed with 622 valid responses, marking valid questionnaire retrieval rate at 95.7%. The questionnaire is divided into three sections: 1. Background characteristics including gender, grade of the students and gender of the coach, time and level of swimming and self-help level. 2. Scale on perception of coach leading style. 3. Scale on satisfaction level of coach leading style. The study shows that:
A. Training and teaching behavior of the swimming coach received the highest perception and autocratic behavior the lowest. In general, only autocratic behavior was perceived lower than median value, training and teaching behavior, democratic behavior, social support behavior and reward/incentive behavior generally have positive feedbacks. Students tend to have higher satisfaction level towards the leading style of swimming coach. B. Perception on the leading style of swimming coach is significantly different among elementary school students in different grade, swimming time and level. Elementary school students in different grade have significantly different perception on satisfaction level of leading style of the coach. C. Characteristics of the leading style are positively correlated to the satisfaction level of swimming coach and all reach significant level. Students’ perception on the social support behavior, training and teaching behavior and reward/incentive behavior is significantly predictive towards its relation to satisfaction level. Overall, students’ perception on the leading style of the swimming coach attributes 44.8% to the satisfaction level of swimming coach.
