Nonverbal Communication Cues in SOVB Bench Players An Independent Study by Emily Carr
The Inspiration -As part of my CIS major, one of the courses I put in my major was an independent study. I knew Head Volleyball Coach Emily Foster had done work for her Masters in Psychology on nonverbal communication cues in collegiate volleyball players, and frankly non-verbal communication is something I find fascinating and applicable across all aspects of life. This is how I decided what I would do for my study.
The Inspiration -In the original study, research was done team leaders on the court. There were six options for cues that each reaction could be coded as, and of those six, three were qualified as pride cues and three as shame cues. The cues were as follows: 1. Expanding Body (Pride) 2. Adding Energy (Pride) 3. Approaching Team (Pride) 4. Narrowing Body (Shame) 5. Energy Drain (Shame) 6. Isolation from Team (Shame)
The Inspiration -What was found in Emily’s graduate study was that pride cues occurred significantly more in wins and shame cues occurred significantly more in losses. Specifically, 60.1% of pride cues were exhibited by winning leaders, while 72.9% of shame cues occurred in losing leaders. -This data fascinated me, especially being an athlete myself. I wanted to put my own spin on it and see what I could do in my own study.
The Inspiration Major Goal of the Course : In this study, I wanted further my knowledge of nonverbal communication, specifically those of athletes. Specifically, I would be studying and researching how positive and negative nonverbal communication cues are correlated with overall team success in collegiate volleyball. Reasons why this work should be done independently: This study gave me the opportunity to study real life emotions and reactions that were applicable to my individual major (Athletic Administration and Management) and future professions. A greater understanding of athletes is critical for what I hope to do with my degree. This work will be done both independently and outside of the traditional classroom setting in order for me to maximize my ability to research and spend time observing my subjects in the appropriate setting.
The Inspiration -I knew I wanted to do something along the lines of what Emily had done, but I knew there also was no way to cover the breadth or depth of what she covered (little did I know how much less was actually feasible, but more on that later). After talking with her, we decided I would film each home conference match, and code the body language of each bench player after every point. The plan was to use the same six cues to code, and to test the hypothesis that benches with more overall prideful body language would correlate with more points won on the court. Each cue was given a number, 1 through 6.
The Cues // 1: Expanding Body Definition: Any action to make the body appear larger. including arms lifted/away from body and/or torso/ chest out.
The Cues // 2: Adding Energy Definition: Any action which includes celebrating that is more than normal while adding energy to the team. Includes the actions of feet stomping, fist pumps, and jumping to celebrate.
The Cues // 3: Approaching Team Definition: First instinct after the point to approach an individual player or extra effort to gather the group. Aggressive and assertive in communications.
The Cues // 4: Narrowing Body Definition: Any action to make the body look smaller which can include shoulder slumping, narrowing of the torso, looking down. And arms close to the body. This also includes any action or movement of the shoulders toward each other in the front of the body or towards the ground.
The Cues // 5: Energy Drain Definition: Any action that demonstrates a lack of movement including laying on the floor or moving slowly. Examples include posing in the posture the athlete ended in. Or any other action that would demonstrate a; lack of attention to team.
The Cues // 6: Isolation From Team Definition: Any action following the point which includes not initiating contact with teammates. For example, an athlete could walk away avoids or does the minimum contact possible.
The Cues // 0 and Blank -During the course of my study I also found it difficult sometimes to categorize a bench player into one of the six cues; sometimes I thought they stayed neutral with their body language. When this happened, I coded it as “0”. I also initially put “NA” when a player was not on screen (playing or walked off camera), however later I deleted the “NA” and just left the code box blank for the sake of analyzing data. Below are examples of when I categorized a player as neutral, or “0”.
Reality Hits -Volleyball season went until November 2nd. The initial plan was to film all the games, go over the film to see what I would be looking for in the coding process, then code after the season. What I didn’t realize was how much coding just one match would be. Since I ended up giving myself a little over a month to code all matches AND create my final presentation, I realized I needed to change the game plan. After a lot of revision, the final product was to be a coding of the Augsburg match, a five set match in which there were 206 points played. Coding 11 bench players for 206 total points adds up to be 2,266 data points coded. Factoring in the players that were on the court that had “NA” as their code, there were 3,502 data points coded. Those 3,502 points ended up proving to be being more than enough work for a semester long research project, but a good enough amount for me to analyze and get some interesting findings.
The Augsburg Match -Since I did wait until the conclusion of the season to start, I was able to go through the film and select the match I thought would give the widest spread of data. I selected the Augsburg match because it was five sets, giving me the most information, but also giving me the widest range of what one might call an “emotional rollercoaster” over the course of the match. Seeing the cues flow and change over the course of the match proved to be very interesting….
The Spreadsheet: Key
The Spreadsheet: Set 1 (AUG 21-STO 25, AUG 0-STO 1)
The Spreadsheet: Set 2 (AUG 25-STO 19, AUG 1-STO 1)
The Spreadsheet: Set 3 (AUG 25-STO 22, AUG 2-STO 1)
The Spreadsheet: Set 4 (AUG 19-STO 25, AUG 2-STO 2)
The Spreadsheet: Set 5 (AUG 10-STO 15, AUG 2-STO 3) OLES WIN!
The Data -Throughout the process of coding and from the data I found, it was clear I would not truly be able to test my original hypothesis of benches with more overall prideful body language would correlate with more points won on the court. Honestly only coding one team would give me no way to compare a control group to another group, and there was no way to know what else besides points won and lost were factoring into each player’s body language (and vice versa). Although it was a bold idea to want to test initially, it was not a hypothesis that was feasible for one woman and one volleyball team to test.
The Data -However, just because my hypothesis didn’t work out doesn’t mean the research was fruitless. As I mentioned earlier, there were over 3,500 points of data collected just in this one match. Of these 3,500 points, the vast majority of pride cues ended up being #2, Adding Energy. The majority of shame cues were #4, Narrowing Body. Overall, there were definitely more pride cues than shame cues, even in the sets that were lost. One thing that stood out was the appearance of shame cues after three or more lost points in a row. For the first two points lost, about 70% of cues were either pride cues or neutral. After the third point in a row was lost, the pride or neutral cues plummeted to about 30%. If I had to choose, I would say this is the most significant data that I found. However, another significant piece of data I found was that 91% of the time after a player returned to the bench, their next cue was either pride or neutral. That’s a large percentage, even for just a single match.
The Data To summarize: The initial hypothesis: benches with more overall prideful body language would correlate with more points won on the court. The Results: 1. For the first two points lost, about 70% of cues were either pride cues or neutral. After the third point in a row was lost, the pride or neutral cues plummeted to about 30%. 2. 91% of the time after a player returned to the bench, their next cue was either pride or neutral.
In Conclusion -In conclusion, I learned a LOT from this research project. Although I did find two pieces of what I think could be considered significant data (if research was expanded upon more), most of what I learned had nothing to do with the cues whatsoever. I filmed 8 matches, three of which were non-conference before it was decided I would cut down to only conference matches. I was unable to film two conference matches, due to mechanical difficulties with the risers where I placed my camera. I was warned by Emily how much time the coding would take, but until I started I really had NO idea what I had gotten myself into. I also failed to consider that I was one person who also had the workload of three other courses, my own sport, and a social life, who also had no help coding AND no past experience in the field of this research.
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