Exploring Coach-Athlete Relationships

There are many approaches to qualitative analysis, but interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) emerges to be one of the most common approaches taken by researchers seeking psychology dissertation help. According to Peat et al (2019), IPA is a qualitative research analysis approach that focuses on the idiographic nature of the data to evaluate how the target population, within a specific context makes sense of a particular phenomenon. In most cases, the phenomenon under investigation is experiences considered by the respondents to be of personal importance such as the development of an important relationship or a significant life event (Brown et al, 2018). By using the IPA approach to analyse data, this study will use a combination of idiographic, interpretative and psychological components of the data to understand the relationship between a coach and two athletes after conducting a focus group interview with the participants.

There are several theoretical underpinnings for the selection of IPA in this particular study. For instance, IPA involves a close examination of the respondents’ experiences; to make meaning of what the experience was like, especially when the study involves a small number of respondents (Noon, 2018). Hennik et al (2020) recommend that at least 6 respondents are appropriate for IPA but suggest further that any number between 3 to 15 respondents is sufficient to take part because they are capable of giving enough data to make a meaningful understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. Similarly, Tracy (2019) suggests that IPA is useful when participants have a common experience with one another, making it easier to understand the phenomenon under investigation within a given context. The participants give a shared perspective of the phenomenon, validating the information provided by their colleagues for the researcher to record the most pertinent issues commonly raised.

IPA uses data gathered through qualitative methodologies such as interviews, focus groups or diaries (Lune & Berg, 2016). Ideally, the data collection process takes a flexible approach i.e. open-ended interviews and questionnaires and the interviewer (in case of interviews and focus groups) take s a facilitative approach by allowing the respondents to give as much information as possible. This, in the present study, the analysed data were personally delivered accounts of the respondents’ experiences, giving a set of rich data captured in a manner that allows the researcher to understand the participants’ experiences (Glesne, 2016).

During the analysis, their researcher will not set out to test any hypothesis but rather, attempts to gather the participants’ experiential world. The data transcript was recorded and transcribed verbatim, with a keen focus on the participants’ claims and narration of experiences. Therefore, as recommended by Howitt (2016), the use of IPA in this analysis is meant to make meaning of the respondent’s experiences i.e. to understand what the participants’’ experiences were like, and makes sense of such experiences.

During the process, the analysis yielded the following themes:

Good Leadership in Sports Coaching

Good Listening Skills

During the interview, the interviewer picked on certain points raised by the respondents about leadership and certain characteristics of the coach that showed that he was a good leader. In this regard, the respondents agreed that the coach displayed the leadership skills of a good listener, a trait that enabled them to learn from each other. For instance, the respondent said that:

P1: Yeah… That’s [listening], in my eyes, the most important to a team because if you’ve got a coach that won’t listen to you how are you ever going to learn because at the end of the day, [coach] will still be learning from us

There is a tone of evidence in existing literature that listening to others is a good leadership trait. For instance, literature by Fransen et al (2017) highlight that listening is a form of appreciating others and contributes to trust among team members. Similarly, Cummins et al (2017) insists that the best way through which leaders can recognize their team members is by listening to them because it facilitates a better understanding of different opinions and ideas from other people’s perspective. Perhaps this is why one of the respondents compares their current coach with their previous one and concludes that if they still had the previous coach (who never had good listening skills), they could have achieved the victory as did with the current coach:

P2: but say if we were with [previous coach name] or another coach that doesn’t listen that move might not have gone, we might not have practiced it and we might not have won a game because of it, so…

Goal setting

The interview results also highlighted that a good leader is realistic. While asked to give opinion on their vision and future plans for the team, one respondent (the coach) narrated that while they aim to win the league, he does not intent to set unrealistic goals for the team but rather, they want to be open-minded. Upon setting the goal of wining the league, it is apparent that the coach is optimistic and believes in the capabilities of the team to achieve the set goal:

Coach: the level they are playing at [standard of the team] and the division we’re in, we are looking to win that league. That’s the goal… I’m open-minded and I’m realistic and I know that these lads can, I discuss with every team at the start of the season, what they are capable of, what they should be striving for, I never set unrealistic challenges and I think we are good enough to win that league so that’s the goal. And that’s what I say to them and from what I’ve seen, after the two matches we’ve played I’ve not changed me [my] mind…

Effective goal setting has largely been highlighted by leadership scholars and management pundits. Goal setting is so much of a critical leadership role that a model (SMART) has been developed to ensure that leaders achieve the goals. Particularly, believers in the SMART model hold that when setting goals, leaders must ensure that the goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (Chee et al, 2017). Therefore, by subscribing to realistic goals, the respondent displays signs of a good leader – as outlined by (Resnick, 2018).

Group Dynamics

The analysis also yielded group dynamics as one of the eminent themes identifiable in the conversation between the interviewee and the respondents. According to Lewin (2016), group dynamics refers to interaction between group members and how a particular group interacts with other groups. In the analysis, group dynamics was evident in the way the team members interacted with each other and how individuals in the team behaved towards one another. In most cases, group dynamics happen in a sports team, a singing group or an academic club. Here, we analyses the element of group dynamics in the sports team, how they made decisions, respond to change, and how they interact with each other. With this regard, the researcher was keen on identifying how the team members passed various stages of group dynamics including forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

Forming

The interview results highlighted how the team members acquaints themselves with each other by bonding and developed a sense of togetherness towards the common goal of winning their matches. For instance, the respondents highlighted that:

P1: …it showed though on the pitch [improvements due to 3 sessions with coach], the morale of the players and how we were bonding, as a team… due to better coaching.

P2: I was going to say when we play them here, we would have been together for… quite a few months and everyone’s all together and everything’s all good we’ll walk it [the match], easily…

Forming was also displayed when one respondent described that when they first joined the team, the first sessions with the other team members were unpleasant, characterized by a disruptive squad that could not cooperate to achieve their goals. However, after joining the team as a coach, they agreed and developed ground rules on certain important aspects of the team such as training sessions. The respondent said that:

Coach: Erm… they’re getting there, they’re getting there. When I first come, the first couple of sessions I had with them were awful, if I’m honest, erm… and there was certain elements within the squad who were disruptive, which you wouldn’t expect at this level, not to the level they were doing it, so I think we had a few words didn’t we [turns to the players]?

P2: Yeah, P1 nods…

Going through the forming stage is necessary for the team to grow, face challenges, overcome problems, find solutions and achieve goals. Believers in the theory of group dynamics claim that at the forming stage, the team members meet each other for the first time to learn about each other, the group and the commonalities that individual members share (Davis, 2016). Laying the ground rules and becoming comfortable with each other is critical at this stage. Furthermore, (Nakauchi et al, 2017) observes that after gaining an acquaintance with each other, the team members then agrees on goals, challenges and tasks they need to achieve together. This is displayed in the following transcript:

Coach: … things have improved there [less disruption] and we’ve agreed as a squad, that was part of the problem before I came that, the problem they had with the last one [coach] was the amount of disruption in the [training] sessions, so we agreed… that’s what happened…

P2: Yeah…

Here, the respondents narrates how the coach joined the team and identified specific areas that need change i.e. agreeing on goals, challenges and tasks that they need to achieve together. Davis (2016) argues that a good leader in the forming stage should model appropriate behavior by leading the team towards the goals they ought to achieve rather than the goals they want to achieve. This illustrates why the coach, as identified earlier on, displayed good leadership skills by setting realistic goal for the team.

Storming

The subtheme of storming also emerged in some parts of the conversation with the interviewer. Ideally, according to Nakauchi et al (2017) storming is the stage of group dynamics whereby individuals in the group begin to form opinions of one another, based on the integrity and character of each individual. In most cases, the more active members of the group will voice their opinions about other team members loudly, especially when one or more members are not contributing to a group effort. Particularly, in this analysis, the storming element of group dynamics emerged when one respondent identified the other as the most influential, who would point out or give their opinion about any other team member especially if they did a wrong thing. This is illustrated below:

Interviewer: In terms of the team then, who’s kind of influential within the team do you think?... In terms of which individuals…

P2: Erm… probably [P1] really because of what… he has played and is being taught by [pro club] and he’s got a bit more experience than anyone else and when he’s on the pitch he does command quite a bit of respect. He’ll go and… if he thinks you’re doing something wrong he’ll tell you but he won’t just scream and shout at you, he will actually tell you “right, just do this and I’ll…” If say, tackling if you’re struggling he will help you out a bit and that’s why [he’s influential]

While Nakauchi et al (2017) illustrates that the storming stage is also characterized by team members disagreeing and having personality clashes, this element of the storming stage was not displayed in the analysis. Nonetheless, Davis (2016) observes that to overcome the challenges of this stage, group leaders must make a commitment to help individuals learn their differences, communicate with each other more comfortably and be free from judgment based on their opinion. This is why the team has reached a point where they effectively communicate with each other, developing the habit of not arguing as other teams do:

P1: And what I think makes us different as well like, the best thing is we don’t argue amongst each other now, we’ve gone past that stage and we see it with other teams, they are arguing and it’s just your team morale really and if you’re not arguing you’re going to pick your game up and you’re going to work for each other, but as soon as you start arguing, like you see other teams doing, everything just goes to pot [out the window]…

Reflexive Commentary

The most important thing I have learnt from this analysis is that rather than being sufficiently interpretive, IPA is mostly descriptive. For instance, I realized that in the process of identifying and interpreting the respondents’ experiences, I largely relied on the specific words and comments made by the respondent within the chat transcript, thereby describing them rather than interpreting them. This realization may have importance for two major reasons. First, it implies that there is a risk of researcher bias if the analysis process becomes more descriptive. Secondly, the more descriptive the analysis is, the less valid the research conclusions would be because it would be based on wrong data analysis procedure (Lune & Berg, 2016). Having realized that, I wonder if researchers are always keen enough to be more interpretive in their analysis than descriptive; whenever they take the IPA approach of qualitative data analysis. This new insight is useful in my course and in my future scholastic of IPA approaches.

Another significant issue I have not addressed in my previous writing is that the method of data collection might have influenced the emergence of themes. Only one individual participated in the data collection and analysis process and therefore there was no second opinion on whether the identified themes were common across all the participants. Ideally, according to Glesne (2016), the theme identification should be done by more than one person so that the themes can be independently compared to ensure that the identified themes are common across participants. However, in the current analysis, the theme identification was only conducted by one individual. A possible implication of this understanding is that there was no second opinion on the most common themes that could be developed out of the transcript data and therefore the identified themes might have been skewed towards my personal opinion and interpretation of the data (Howitt, 2016). This concept of seeking the second opinion on theme identification is valuable because it will change the way I approach thematic analysis in my future qualitative studies; developing my commitment to always have a second researcher identify the themes so that the results can be compared for creating an agreement on the emergent themes.

References

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Fransen, K., Haslam, S. A., Mallett, C. J., Steffens, N. K., Peters, K., & Boen, F. (2017). Is perceived athlete leadership quality related to team effectiveness? A comparison of three professional sports teams. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 20(8), 800-806.

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