Maitland and gervis' study on goal setting and coaches found that, for goals to be effective, coaches should be

Maitland and Gervis' study on goal setting and coaches found that, for goals to be effective, coaches should be engaged with the goal-setting process. The study was to use naturalistic inquiry and the social cognitive theories of motivation to identify and describe the motivational choices that players make as they go through the goal-setting process and examine the influence of the coach on this process. It means that goal-setting needs had to be examined in a broader context than goal-setting theory.

In short, coaches should engage in an interactive and ongoing dialogue with players, taking into account the motivational needs of the players and their own to improve the effectiveness of setting goals as a technique, and hence their effectiveness as a coach.