Effects of a Short Workshop-style Facilitation Program to Improve the Sense of Unity among Collegiate Track and Field Athletes

This case study explored the effects of a short workshop-style facilitation program to improve the sense of unity among collegiate track and field athletes. The participants were 14 female athletes who were affiliated with a university track and field club (mean age = 19.43 ± 1.22 years) . Our theme for program day 1 was : “to identify positive cores.” Our themes for program day 2 were : “to imagine what we can be” and “to declare what we should be.” We collected data on the program’ s pros and cons from open-ended questionnaires. Content analysis was made by the KJ method ( “card making” and “grouping and naming” ) . The KJ method was used by one university lecturer who specialized in psychology and by two graduate students whose majors were sports science. Based on the KJ method, our data were sorted into five categories : “to be able to communicate” , “to produce a better atmosphere” , “to be able to re-realize” , “to be able to understand another’ s attitude” , and “to be able to think in terms of their future.” In order to develop an effective team-building program, more studies should be conducted.