The Relationship Between Cohesion, Collective Efficacy, Communication and Performance Outcomes in Youth Team Sports
Date
2019-09-20
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Abstract
One of the foremost challenges for coaches and applied sport psychologists working with teams is enhancing group functioning to maximize team performance. Group dynamics theorists and practitioners have consistently highlighted the importance of a number of group variables (communication, cohesion, and collective efficacy) which are positively associated with team success, and as a result could be a target for group interventions. To develop more effective interventions when working with sports teams, the relationships between communication, cohesion, collective efficacy and performance outcome should be examined. Thus, the purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between communication, cohesion, collective efficacy, and performance outcome in competitive youth sport soccer teams. The participants were competitive youth soccer players in Calgary Minor Soccer Association in Calgary, Canada. A cross-sectional study conducted at the end of a season measured communication, cohesion, collective efficacy, and performance outcome. Based on structural equation modelling, communication was marginally significant and positively related to cohesion. Also, cohesion was positively related to collective efficacy, which in turn, led to higher performance outcome. Also, communication was negatively related to performance outcome. Cohesion had an indirect effect on performance outcome. Therefore, the model proposed in this study was partially verified. That is, communication (behaviour in a team), team cohesion, situation-specific team confidence, and performance outcome were linearly related. Also, it is possible that the strong relationship between communication and performance outcome was due to multicollinearity. For team building interventions to enhance performance in team sports, communication should be considered with caution as communication was positively related to cohesion, but negatively related to performance outcome.
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cohesion, collective efficacy, communication
Citation
Yasuda, Y. (2019). The Relationship Between Cohesion, Collective Efficacy, Communication and Performance Outcomes in Youth Team Sports (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.