Team learning process: a longitudinal study in dynamic situation

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore team learning processes used by soccer players in a professional training context by focusing on their identification and evolution for 22 months.

Design/methodology/approach

A soccer team from a professional academy participated to this study based on six training sessions. Qualitative data on training sessions were collected. Data analysis followed four steps: reporting the game timeline and behaviours connected to each situation; coding verbal data by delineating meaningful units of activity; classifying meaningful units of activity according to team learning processes derived from previous studies; and providing a temporal graph representing occurrences of team learning processes at each training session.

Findings

Results showed that soccer players used 13 team learning processes during training sessions. Two processes are mainly mobilized to visualize the situation and to plan. A temporal graph was edited to represent processes evolve over training sessions. The latter illustrated a stability in team learning processes mobilization during the 22 months follow-up.

Research limitations/implications

This study complete knowledges about team learning by providing a fine-grained understanding of how players learn in teams and how team learning processes evolve over time.

Practical implications

This paper can help practitioners who manage teams in high temporal pressure situations to design adapted training programs.

Originality/value

This exploratory study highlights that the team learning processes usually mobilized “off-field” could also be used by team members in high temporal pressure situations, “on-field”. This study offers an original longitudinal approach that fits with some recent calls for contribution about team activity and could benefit to other research fields.

Citation

Kérivel, T., Bossard, C. and Kermarrec, G. (2022), "Team learning process: a longitudinal study in dynamic situation", The Learning Organization, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 52-68. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLO-09-2020-0177