Date of Award

Fall 2021

Publication Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.H.K.

Department

Kinesiology

Keywords

Athletes, Electronic sports, Psychological skills training, Sport psychology, Team building

Supervisor

K. Munroe-Chandler

Supervisor

T. Loughead

Abstract

The popularity and commercial success of videogames in the current era has given rise to a new type of competition: electronic sports (or esports). While the debate to determine whether esports deserve to be included under the larger umbrella of “sports” is ongoing (Jenny et al., 2016; Wagner, 2006), researchers have proposed that esports would benefit greatly from research in traditional sport psychology (Murphy, 2009; Pedraza-Ramirez et al., 2020). Since team building and psychological skills training (PST) programs have been employed within traditional sport settings to enhance the performance and outcomes of sport teams (Bruner et al., 2013; Munroe-Chandler & Hall, 2021), the aim of the current study was to examine the impact of a PST-based team building workshop program on collegiate-level esports players’ perceptions of team cohesion as well as their use of PST techniques during training. This was accomplished by comparing the participants’ scores on the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron et al., 1985), and the Test of Performance Strategies-2 (TOPS-2; Hardy et al., 2010) pre-to post-intervention. The participants included four players of the University of Windsor’s esports program Lancer Gaming. While the effect of the intervention on the participants’ scores on the GEQ and TOPS-2 could not be statistically analysed due to small sample size, the effect sizes that were observed could be indicative of beneficial effect of the intervention workshops. Suggestions are presented for researchers looking to work with collegiate esports player populations.

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