Micro-Study on Rugby Players
This study was done as a 10 week project for my qualitative research class. The goal of this study was to understand how rugby players participate in rugby, on a collegiate level. This study focused on a particular group of rugby players, the University of Washington’s women’s rugby team.
The research question started out as “How do rugby players participate in rugby?”, then transitioned to “How do rugby players interact with each other in different contexts?”.
Research Question
Worked With…
Tools
Paper and pencil, MS Word, MS Excel, Camera on Phone
Teammates
N/A
Field Observations
The first step in my process was to conduct field observations. The reason why I started with field observations was to get a general idea of what a rugby player went through in a day and what some potential problems they run into. I conducted three observation sessions, each observation session lasting one hour in length. These observation sessions took place at the rugby team’s practices, which were located at the outdoor practice center, a football field behind Husky Stadium.
The Outdoor Practice Facility, the location where the rugby players practiced
During each individual observation session, I jotted down notes and sketches in a notebook, centering on one rugby player in particular. After each observation session, I wrote down more in-detail field notes in documents, including sketches that I had made during my observation sessions.
Visual diagram of a ball passing drill, that was including in the field notes
Interviews
The next step in my process was to conduct interviews. The purpose of doing interviews was to get more in-depth knowledge about what rugby players experienced in their daily life and what some of their problems were.
I conducted three interviews, each interview lasted around thirty to forty-five minutes. I used a semi-structured interview format, I had a list of around ten questions that I would ask each person, but I would come up with follow-up questions, if an interviewee said something interesting. I recorded each conversation, then I would later go back and then transcribe the interview.
Making a Codebook
The third step in my process, was to generate codes, based on the data collected. The purpose of generating codes and making a codebook was to start generating findings. First, I went through each of my interviews and my field notes, writing down notes and trying to find some themes. The next step, was to get the fifteen most common themes and start categorizing them into categories. Then, I wrote down descriptions for each code and found one quote or excerpt from my interviews and field notes that matched the code.
Memos
After completing my codebook, the fourth step in my process was to write memos about three of my codes. The purpose of this step was to dive deeper into some of the codes that I had written about and write in more detail about why the code was relevant.
One of the more difficult problems that I encountered doing this part of the process was figuring out which codes I wanted to write about in my memos. I felt that all of my codes helped me answer the question, “How do rugby players participate in rugby?”.
Eventually, I settled on three codes, as I knew that after finishing writing these memos, I would have to edit my research question around these three codes. Writing these memos helped me refine my research question, changing it from the broad, “How do rugby players participate in rugby?” to the more focused, “How do rugby players interact with each other in different contexts?
Final Report
The last step in my process was to write a final report. This final report covered and summarized the basis and inspiration for my research, the research question, the methods I used throughout this process, my findings, the design implications of this research, and my overall conclusions. The main themes that I had discovered within my final report were:
Communication during practices - Rugby players frequently communicate with each other during practices in order to communicate instructions and to practice completing plays during games
Interactions between roles during rugby games - Rugby players have to communicate with each other on the field to prevent accidents and to complete plays during the game
Interactions outside of games and practices - Rugby players regularly socialize and hang out with each other outside of practice
I feel as if this research could be used to help recruit rugby players to teams and to encourage coaches to promote communication amongst their rugby teams, as rugby was found to be a sport with a deep community and communication was key to rugby players improving their own skills and winning games.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed working on this project, it was my first time working with rugby players. I felt this helped me improve my research skills, as one of my goals is to get better working on research that centers around people who aren’t in the tech sector. I hope I can do more sport related research in the future, specifically research that centers on the interactions between athletes and the effects on how they compete.