Postgraduate diss is done!

This morning, I submitted my dissertation! The final paper was titled:

“The impact of identity leadership on psychological safety in footballers: A test of mediation by team identification”

I have to say, I am pretty pleased with how this experience has panned out. I haven’t blogged about it as much as I’d hoped, so I’ll give you a run down of my experience in this single post.

I had my ethics application approved at the start of this year. That was a far more straightforward process than for most, as I was joining an existing project. My task was to collect data for a PhD student doing their thesis in Belgium, and then use the data I collected to form my own research project. I had so much data to choose from, as the PhD student needed data for a huge variety of variables. That worked in my favour, as I could shape my own project around pretty much any of it. I decided to look at identity leadership, psychological safety, and team identification. More specifically the relationships between perceived engagement in identity leadership by coaches and team captains, and the psychological safety of footballers within their teams. I also tested for a mediation effect of team identification on these relationships.

Findings from my research show the importance of coaches and team captains engaging in dimensions of identity leadership, as this enhances their players’ team identification. Importantly, team identification is a predictor of psychological safety in footballers. It is therefore recommended that leaders (whether from above or within) engage in dimensions of identity leadership, as this will improve team identification amongst the group. This enhanced team identification will then improve players’ psychological safety. It can be ascertained that coaches’ and team captain’s engagement in identity leadership will have demonstrable positive outcomes for footballers.

One of the most challenging aspects of the dissertation process has, surprisingly, been about formatting. Up until this project, I have been used to a simple word count on an assignment, excluding references and cover pages. For the dissertation, I needed to submit the document as a manuscript, as if it was being submitted to a journal of sport psychology. This meant adhering to journal submission guidelines, which stipulated a total page count, inclusive of title page and references. The page limit for my dissertation was 30, which I realise sounds like a lot. In reality, the body of my dissertation was under 6000 words, as the entire document (including references) needed to be double spaced, using up an inordinate amount of valuable space! I am pleased with the final result though. Just over seven months of hard work has amounted to this. Onwards to the PhD!!