Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

EQ: How can a basketball player best maximize their team's chances of winning the championship?

Best Answer: A basketball player can best maximize their team's chances of winning the championships by being a good, effective leader. This is my best answer because it takes a whole team to win the championships, not just one player. And leaders establish a clear end goal which  motivates their group, team, or partners to work their hardest to reach it. Relating this back to my essential question, the end goal would be to win the championships.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I actually asked a lot of coaches, players, and just people in general what they thought was the best answer to my essential question. This gave me a wide view of other individuals' point of view, possible answers and it allowed me to choose or slightly modify my favorite answer.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

When we were gathering statistics for the ESA, I had a very hard time finding any sort of statistics on my first answer, which was defense. Even after I checked Cal Poly's data base for studies, I still could not find anything useful. So I went to to the NBA's website and looked up the highest ranked defensive teams, and the highest ranked overall teams. As I analyzed the two charts, I found that there was a correlation between defensive rank and overall rank. So I created my own statistic using the information provided by the NBA.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

One of the most significant sources I used to find my answer to my essential question was my mentor. He is the one that actually brought up the topic of leadership and it's effects on a team. He had lot's of experience with team's that had leaders and teams that did not. So he was very helpful with providing examples and comparing teams with and without leaders. And the other significant source is the book, Leadership: Sixth Edition, by Peter G. Northouse. This book had everything that leaders have and do to make their followers succeed. It was essential for me because there weren't many helpful online article's that were out there. This book had everything I needed to support my answer with studies, charts and examples.