| dc.description.abstract | Background/purpose: There have been many studies examining cohesion in sport teams. The majority of those studies have examined cohesion in team sports, and less so in individual sports. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate and identify how cohesion is experienced in individual national sport teams.
Research question: How do athletes experience and describe cohesion in individual national sport teams?
Method: A qualitative method was used, where semi-structured individual interviews were used to obtain subjective experiences and descriptions. The interviews were analysed in NVIVO after transcription. The sample consisted of seven former individual national team athletes, representing the sports alpine skiing (n=2), biathlon (n=1), speed skating (n=2) and Nordic combined (n=2). The sample was divided between three women and four men.
Results: Transcribed interview material was categorized into three overall categories: 1) Team structure, 2) collective interaction, and 3) intrateam communication.
Conclusion: Athletes on individual national sport teams experience and describe cohesion through team structure, collective interaction and intrateam communication. Collective interaction shows a strong relation with task cohesion, while team structure and intrateam communication show a relation with both task and social cohesion.
Keywords: Cohesion; groups; teams; communication; conflict. | |