Personal Case Study: Observing Skills In Football

I observed Carol interacting with her teammates and coach at soccer practice for the observation portion of this case study. Her team is comprised of a dozen fifth through eighth graders, most of them hailing from a larger city of about 63,000, so she doesn’t know any of them from outside of soccer. Throughout the practice, which included several different kinds of drills to improve ball-handling skills, as well as a scrimmage at the end, Carol seemed to have a notably strong student-teacher relationship with her coach, but not so much with the other kids (this is possibly due to the fact that she has had the same coach for several seasons now, and many of the other players are new to the team). While she didn’t directly engage her teammates in conversation, she still was listening to their banter and laughing along. At one point during the practice, Carol jokingly told her

She eagerly volunteered several times to be first to try a drill, or to be the goalie while her teammates practiced shooting goals. She was actually very good at anticipating and stopping her teammates’ shots, perhaps indicating the beginnings of formal operational thinking due to being able to figure out where the ball was going before it reached her. At the end of the scrimmage however, she seemed to be disappointed, shuffling her feet on the way to get a drink. This may have been because many of the other kids were getting tired, stopped putting forth much effort into the game, and were clowning around, causing her side to lose dramatically. If so, this could be a sign of Erikson’s industry versus inferiority stage because she desired to do well and succeed, but failed because of her teammates’ actions and was disappointed. Nevertheless, she still cheerily helped her coach pick up the equipment before leaving for the