Influence of Games & Sports on Group Cohesion Development Among Male Indian Athletes

Objective: The objective of the study is to find out the influence of games & sports on group cohesion development among male Indian athletes. Methodology: For the purpose of the study, 100 sportsmen and 100 non-sportsmen boys were randomly selected. The age of all the subjects ranges from 18 yrs. to 22 yrs. The Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) developed by Albert V. Carron, was used to assess the group cohesion skills of the subjects. Descriptive statistics was used to examine the significance difference among four domains of Group Cohesion (A- Individual Attractions to the Group-Social (ATGS), B- Individual Attractions to the Group-Task (ATGT), C- Group Integration-Social (GIS), D- Group Integration-Task (GIT)). One-way ANOVA was used, and the hypothesis was tested at a .05 level of significance. Results: The mean and standard deviation of non-playing boys are A- Individual Attractions to the Group-Social (ATGS) (31.02 +4.16), B- Individual Attractions to the Group-Task (ATGT) (29.20+6.17), C- Group Integration-Social (GIS) (27.22+5.64), D- Group Integration-Task (GIT) (34.16+8.26) and Total Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) Scale is (121.70 +17.26). Mean and standard deviation of players in different games and sports are A- Individual Attractions to the Group-Social (ATGS) (41.82 +2.54), B- Individual Attractions to the Group-Task (ATGT) (31.20+4.32), C- Group Integration-Social (GIS) (29.38+4.99), D- Group Integration-Task (GIT) (40.32+5.26) and Total Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) Scale is (142.72 +12.32). The ANOVA result shows that the “p-values” of the domains of the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) Scale is less than 0.05 and hence the F-value is significant at 5% level. Conclusion: Results clearly indicates that there is a significant difference existing between the group cohesion and sports achievements of college boys. Students who are high on the GEQ Scale are having high sports achievement hence group cohesion plays major role in sports achievements among male students. Development of group cohesion among player’s leads to better sports performance. Article visualizations: