Evan Adler

   How Team Culture Impacts Self-Reported Individual Performance in Swimming?

Abstract: Previous works have found there has been a correlation between team culture and individual performance, but at a collegiate level, other studies have found a relationship between team culture and team performance. However, I want to discover the relationship between team culture, such as leadership/coaching style or peer involvement, and how that impacts swimmers at a high school level. My method consisted of a participant-based survey in which I asked swimmers from various high schools various questions relating to team culture, coaching styles, and performance. Using the results of this, I compiled the results into just quantitative data, in an attempt to find a correlation between the two variables, team culture and performance. I found that there was, in fact, a correlation between low team culture and performance. The lower the team’s culture, the worse the athletes perform. There was no correlation found between the three main coaching styles (democratic, controlling, and transformational) and performance. This shows that a coach should create a positive team culture for their team, as low performance worsens their athletes' performance.