Practitioners’ Perceptions of Enjin Strategies during Competitive Sport Matches: A Case Study of a Women’ s Collegiate Basketball Team

In competitive sports, the enhancing of physical abilities, technical skills, and psychological states is vital for excelling in competition. A team’ s psychological wellbeing is often the deciding factor in team sport success. Nevertheless, few efficient strategies have been made for boosting teams’ psychological states, particularly during matches. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate practitioners’ perceptions of Enjin (forming a circle) strategies used to enhance a team’ s psychological acuity during matches. In addition, motivations to initiate Enjin strategies, content, and changes observed after implementing these strategies were emphasized. The study was conducted following three steps. First, a women’ s collegiate basketball team’ s Enjin strategies were observed and recorded during an official match. Second, a team coach and four players were interviewed concerning these strategies, after viewing a recording of the match. The participants were requested to provide (1) motivations to implement Enjin strategies; (2) Enjin content; and (3) changes experienced after implementing Enjin strategies. Third, the study results were analyzed following the KJ method. The analysis revealed seven motivations, including “routine,” “desire to enhance team cohesion,” and “foul play.” In addition, four types of Enjin content were identified, including “encouragement,” “information on tactics,” “apologizing,” and “battle cries.” Subsequently, eleven changes, including “enhanced team cohesion” , “shared perspectives among team members,” and “improved excitement levels,” were identified. It was inferred that Enjin strategies enhanced the teams’ psychological states, based on these results. However, additional studies involving several teams, games, events, and genders are required to complement these results.