Detre 1

Coralie Joelle Maryse Detre

Professor Taylor

ENC 1102

1/31/24

Understanding Factors that are influencing Rowing Team dynamics

Rowing is a sport that is known by a very small amount of people, sometimes when rowers

tell other people that their sport is rowing, they answer either: “What is that?” or “Oh, so are paddling

right?”. For a rower, it’s frustrating that people don’t understand their sport because it’s an exigent

sport that requires you to be good at technique as much as cardio, strongness, long-distance and short-

distance endurance, and managing your mind. Rowers put a lot of effort into their sport and deserve

the same recognition as other sports such as football, soccer, or basketball. That is why I thought it

could be interesting to show the general public, why people are putting so much effort into a sport that

doesn’t have the same “prestige” as popular sports. Moreover, I want to understand, through different

perceptions, the dynamic of a rowing Team. I am hoping that through this research project, the general

public could be more interested in Rowing because of the great rower mindset and the team cohesion

that is particular to this sport. My research is going to focus more on the psychological aspect of

rowing because it’s a big part of it.

The research question that is going to help me conduct my research is the following: How do

individual personalities, communication styles, and team cohesion impact the performance and

success of rowing teams? The rowing team that I am going to focus on is the UCF rowing team

because as part of the athlete of this team, I have the capacity to conduct interviews and surveys inside

the team. The research method that I am going to adopt is that I am going to interview rowers,

coaches, and support staff to explore their perception of the team dynamic and the impact of the

individual personalities on the team. I am also going to make some observations around me during

practice and try to focus on these aspects and take notes at the end of each practice. Also, I am going

to conduct a survey about

 Detre 2

which personality people prefer to have in their team because, with a survey, rowers aren’t going to be

afraid of their answers. The type of questions that I could ask during interviews could be:

- How do you feel the team cohesion now and why?

- Which communication people do you prefer rowing with direct people (say everything that

they think), thinker people (control their words before talking to not impact other people’s

feelings), or “keeper people (only say something when it’s good)?

- Give me one word to describe the team. (in the aspect of people not having rowing ability)

- In your opinion, the personality of one of your teammates could influence your mental during

practice. (to get better or to get worse)

- For you, who in the team is giving you a better mental and why?

- Do you think you could have achieved this level of performance on your own?

- Do you think that a team with strong people, but no team cohesion could be fast in a boat?

(Why?)

- Do you think that a team with good cohesion can reach a goal that they were not expecting at

the beginning of the season?

- Do you think that the performance of the team is impacted by the cohesion of the people in it,

or do you think it is two completely different things?

- For you in rowing, the most important thing is to be strong to have a good mental.

- Do you think that your mental impacts your performance?

These questions and the survey could help me to collect data. I need at least 6 persons that answer

both. In the interview, I am going to analyze every answer but also, I’m going to highlight the most

frequent answers and try to give an explanation depending on my observations to them. I can also

transform my questions to be able to interview the coaches and the support staff to have the exterior

aspect.
 Detre 3

Timeline:
When my research proposal is completed, I am going to try interviewing one rower every day or every
two days depending on the practice schedule.

Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8

Research 1-Conducting Analysing

1-Conducting
proposal between 4-5 answer and Writing a
completed interviews 4-5 interviews start writing complete
2- create and 2- collecting the research
post survey the result of conclusion of paper and
the survey the research reviewing it