Life is a team sport. The challenges we face in the micro society of a sport

team reflect the interactions we face daily, either in personal or

professional life. It is believed that teams who work well together perform

better; however, this may require an outside influence. Team-building

(TB) has been defined as a multivariate treatment process of team

enhancement for task and social purposes, which can be characterized as

planned, longitudinal, and dynamic (Rovio, et al.; 2010, 2012). The

purpose of the study was to design, implement and evaluate a multivariate

TB program that helped the participating team to become more cohesive,

and to uncover the factors influencing an effective TB program

Results

Discussion

Nuno Antunes - nuantunes@gmail.com

European Masters of Sport and Exercise Psychology

Introduction

Methods

The present action research case study followed 32 Finnish Female U17

Football players for 8 months. The multivariate approach was used as a TB

method, and included team and individual goal setting (GS), performance

profiling (PP) and role clarifying. Data was collected using a research diary

and a player's reflective sheet, which included a likert scale from 1 to 5 and

space for a open answer to the question Why?. The lead researcher had a

dual role, as a coach and the program manager.

Common Team Goal: TO BECOME AN EFFECTIVE GROUP

3.7 3.6 3.5 3.5

2.9

0

1

2

3

4

5

integration cooperation communication

positive attitude positive feedback

Figure 3 - Players’ perceptions of TB help on TASK sub-goals

3.7 3.6 3.4

3.2

2.8

0

1

2

3

4

5

play hard commitment motivation

"be in practice" concentration

The study revealed that, on approaching TB, the assessment period and the

development of personal rapport should be considered and the multivariate

method was beneficial for the players and the team. In addition, it was

shown that PP and GS are interconnected and contribute to each other's

effectiveness. It was also showed that to promote a leadership network

contributes to the program implementation and to the team's functioning.

The inexperience in applying the methods, the time restraints and the

language barrier were limitations to the study. Moreover, awareness of the

research approach uniqueness is advised and, for that reason, future research

could focus on TB methods in different countries or competition levels.

Figure 1 - Chronogram of the team, sector group and unity council

meetings, specified by task (light shapes) or social activities (dark shapes).

Goal Setting (GS); Unity Council (UC)

Figure 2 - Players’ perceptions of TB help on SOCIAL sub-goals

The results showed that the TB program was perceived as beneficial by the

players and the multivariate method, which included goal setting,

performance profiling and role clarifying, was effective to approach the

needs of the group and the players.