A Cut Above the Rest: Team Performance as a Function of Team Cohesion, Team Familiarity, Team Effectiveness, and Soldier Lethality

Objective: The objective of this study is to gather and analyze data through the use of psychometric instruments regarding several theoretical constructs, including Team Cohesion, Team Familiarity, and Team Effectiveness in order to determine their differential impact on Team Performance outcomes. Background: The annual Sandhurst competition, held at the United States Military Academy, provides cadets the opportunity to function as a small unit. Data collected before, during, and after the competition is used to study the performance of each team in order to gain insights on how Team Cohesion, textit{TeamFamiliarity}, and Team Effectiveness influence their final rankings. In addition, this study develops and tests a Soldier Lethality proxy measure using numerical data collected before and during the competition, which is also used to predict Team Performance. Methods: Psychometric instruments and linear regression models are used to determine the significance of the theoretical constructs and the Soldier Lethality measure on Team Performance outcomes. Results: A total of 194 cadets out of the 456 cadets that participated in the Sandhurst Competition completed the survey. Our findings show that the theoretical constructs were not statistically significant when evaluating Team Performance. However, the Soldier Lethality measure yields a significant result (p-value =0.002; β=0.5; R2=0.22). Conclusions: In this study, raw physical data (denoted here as secondary data) is more effective in predicting Team Performance outcomes in a combatlike setting as opposed to using psychometric instruments due to non-response error (failure to respond to one, or all of the survey questions) and response bias (untruthfully or misleadingly responses). Application: This study shows how objective, detailed data on teamwork may be used to provide insights into questions of the performance of teams.