What is the nature of Team sport? This article will explore how a team operates as a dynamic system, focusing on Participatory sense-making and shared knowledge. It will also explore the various elements that contribute to its success. It concludes with a discussion on the benefits of teamwork, and its limitations. It also suggests that team performance does not necessarily require external structure or rules. But traditional sports psychology and pedagogy have decreed that team performance must be externally prescribed. Instead, ecological dynamics suggest that players exploit informational and physical constraints.
Team sport as a dynamical system
The study of team sports as dynamical systems can be applied to the analysis of performance data in soccer. The theory describes team profiles as nonlinear, cooperative, qualitative, and holistic systems. Team dynamics are described in terms of the variability of their components, including the team’s position in the game, territory and possession, and momentum. The authors use variables to explore the inter-personal coordination of athletes in soccer. They conclude that soccer performance analysis is highly dynamic.
Understanding team dynamics is essential to improving coaching strategies. It gives coaches insight into how teams are likely to perform, how to best coach them, and which types of athletes are most effective at specific roles. By understanding team dynamics, coaches can identify areas for improvement and recruit athletes with a particular profile. Team sport can be an effective means of achieving the ultimate goal: victory! But if you don’t understand the underlying causes, the study will remain inconclusive.
Participatory sense-making
The participatory sense-making hypothesis proposes that the individual performer’s interiority undergoes a reconfiguration during performance environments. Participatory sense-making processes describe the internal meanings that emerge simultaneously from an activity and are constructed by all participants. It assumes a cooperative effort, akin to the enactive approach. Participants share a common experience, and their actions and decisions are based on shared knowledge.
Various hypotheses have been proposed for the explanation of these behaviors. Based on the literature review by Araujo and Bourbousson, two major hypotheses were identified: the shared knowledge hypothesis and the participative sense-making hypothesis. Ultimately, these hypotheses differ in the way they explain the team’s behavior. However, both hypotheses suggest that the individual-environment interaction is critical to inter-player coordination in team sports.
Shared knowledge
Shared knowledge is commonly referred to as a set of situational probabilities that a team has developed. The players have acquired this knowledge by practicing and competing in their particular sport. For example, when a new soccer team is formed, the players all participate in the game. Thus, all members will be familiar with the basic tactics and strategies of the team before the game begins. In such a situation, the players will be able to communicate these changes to one another verbally and visually.
A shared mental model is a psychological construct that is used in the fields of sport, occupational, and industrial psychology. It is a state of shared knowledge among team members, which is equivalent to being on the same page. Sport psychologists are interested in this concept because it may have a profound impact on the coordination of team actions. The theory is also consistent with observations that team members share knowledge about the environment before the competition. In addition, this shared mental model may even help explain how teammates coordinate their actions.