Team Achievement Goals and Sports Team Performance

Heleen Van Mierlo,Edwin A J Van Hooft

doi:10.1177/1046496420913119

Heleen Van Mierlo, Edwin A J Van Hooft

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496420913119

Copy DOI

Abstract

This study focuses on team achievement goals and performance outcomes in interdependent sports teams. Team achievement goals reflect shared motivational states that exist exclusively at the team level. In a survey among 310 members of 29 premier-league field-hockey teams, team-level performance-approach, performance-avoidance, mastery-approach, and mastery-avoidance achievement goals explained 69% of the overall variance in team performance and 16% after controlling for previous performance. Teams performed better to the extent they were more approach- and less avoidance oriented in terms of both mastery and performance, although mastery-approach goals related to early-season team performance rather than predicting later changes in team performance.

Highlights

This study focuses on team achievement goals and performance outcomes in interdependent sports teams
Each goal was measured with three items, for example, “It is important for my field hockey team that we perform better this season compared to other teams”; “Our goal is to avoid performing poorly compared to other field hockey teams”; “My team wants to learn as much as possible about playing hockey”; and “Sometimes, we are concerned that we do not understand the content of our tasks and assignments as fully as we would like”
Our study offers a number of insights that may help extend current theory and research on achievement goals

Summary

Introduction

This study focuses on team achievement goals and performance outcomes in interdependent sports teams. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on understanding achievement goals at the individual level, and in relation to individual cognitions, behaviors, and performance, even in studies in sports team settings (cf Harwood & Beauchamp, 2007; Papaioannou et al, 2004). Sports teams can develop collective, team-level achievement goals, defined as shared motivational constructs that emerge over time, exist exclusively at the team level, and have important implications for team processes and outcomes. Team achievement goals reflect team emergent states: Team properties that vary as a function of team context, inputs, processes, and outcomes, and that develop over time as members work together in a structure of mutual internal and external influences (e.g., Kozlowski et al, 2013; Marks et al, 2001). Scholars have proposed several factors that shape the emergence of shared team-level achievement goals, including individual team members’ trait achievement goals (Van Mierlo & Van Hooft, 2015), leadership influences (Dragoni, 2005; Dragoni & Kuenzi, 2012), and the team’s functional purpose in the organizational context (Gully & Phillips, 2005)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion