A season-long team-building intervention: Examining the effect of team goal setting on cohesion.

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the implementation of a season-long team-building intervention program using team goal setting increased perceptions of cohesion.

The participants were 86 female high school basketball players from 8 teams. The teams were randomly assigned to either an experimental team goal-setting or control condition. Each participant completed the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Brawley, & Widmeyer, 2002; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985), which assessed cohesion at both the beginning and end of the season.

Overall, the results revealed a significant multivariate effect, Pillai's trace F(12,438) = 2.68, p = .002. Post hoc analyses showed that at the beginning of the season, athletes from both conditions did not differ in their perceptions of cohesion. However, at the end of the season, athletes in the team goal-setting condition held higher perceptions of cohesion than athletes in the control condition.

Overall, the results indicated that team goal setting was an effective team-building tool for influencing cohesiveness in sport teams.

Published in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, Vol 30(2), Apr 2008. pp. 186-199. By Senécal, Julie, Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, McGill University, Montreal, PQ, Canada; Loughead, Todd M., Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada; Bloom, Gordon A., Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, McGill University, Montreal, PQ, Canada