What are the social factors in Higher PE?

The social factors are the influences on performance that come from performing with and around other people. At Higher the examinable features are team dynamics, cooperation and communication, roles and responsibilities, relationships, and etiquette and environmental considerations. You must be able to describe each feature and explain its positive and negative impact on team or individual performance in a named activity, and describe approaches used to develop cohesion.

How do social factors impact on performance?

Strong team dynamics, clear and accepted roles and good communication let a team keep its shape, make faster decisions, cover for mistakes and perform as a unit. Poor relationships, unclear or rejected roles and weak communication cause confusion, blame, gaps in cover and a loss of shape under pressure. Even individual performers are affected by social factors through their relationship with a coach, etiquette with opponents and officials, and the influence of the crowd and conditions.

What is the difference between cooperation and roles and responsibilities?

Cooperation is members working together towards a shared goal, putting the team's success ahead of individual reward, shown in covering for each other and accepting team decisions. Roles and responsibilities are the specific, defined job each member does, such as the point guard organising play or the libero defending. Cooperation is the willingness to work together; roles and responsibilities are the structure that says who does what. A team needs both.

How can social factors be developed?

Cohesion is trained. Team-building activities build trust and relationships. Rehearsing set plays teaches players each other's movement so they anticipate and execute at speed. Agreed shared goals align effort, and defined communication calls make information clear and quick. Clarifying and agreeing roles ensures every area is covered. Each approach is built into training, then monitored to check the team functions better as a unit, closing the development loop.

How are social factors examined in Higher PE?

Social factors appear in the question paper through describe and explain questions: describing social factors that affected a team, explaining a positive and a negative impact on performance, and describing an approach used to develop cohesion and explaining how it improved performance. Answers must be anchored in named physical activities and must develop the cause and effect link to team performance, because explanation rather than recall earns the higher marks.

ScotlandPhysical Education

SQA Higher PE Social Factors: a complete overview of team dynamics, cooperation, roles and relationships

A deep-dive SQA Higher Physical Education guide to the social factors impacting on performance. Covers team dynamics, cooperation and communication, roles and responsibilities, relationships and etiquette, how each is examined and the approaches used to develop cohesion.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.814 min readHigherUpdated 2026-06-16

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

Jump to a section

What this factor actually demands
Team dynamics and cooperation
Communication
Roles and responsibilities
Relationships and etiquette
How this factor is examined
Check your knowledge

What this factor actually demands

The social factor asks the same questions as the other three: what are its features, how does each impact on performance, and how can it be developed. The examiners reward precise descriptions, a developed cause and effect link to team or individual performance, and an understanding of how a group of individuals becomes a coordinated unit.

This guide walks through all the features of the social factor, then sets out how they are examined. Each feature is covered on a dot-point page with worked questions; this overview ties them together.

Team dynamics and cooperation

Team dynamics is how members interact, trust and function together; cooperation is working towards a shared goal. Strong dynamics and cooperation produce cohesion: the team keeps its shape, covers for mistakes and performs as a unit. Weak dynamics fracture this and the team underperforms relative to its talent.

Communication

Communication is the clear sharing of information, verbal and non-verbal. It speeds up decisions, prevents duplication and keeps the team organised under pressure. It is one of the most testable features because its effect on shape and decision-making is so direct.

Roles and responsibilities

Roles and responsibilities are each member's defined job. Clear, accepted roles keep every area covered and let players focus on their task; unclear or rejected roles leave gaps and waste effort. Role acceptance is part of cooperation.

Relationships and etiquette

Relationships drive morale and conflict: strong ones build trust and sustain effort, poor ones cause blame and division. Etiquette (sportsmanship and respect) and environmental considerations (crowd, conditions) shape the behaviour and mood a team performs in.

How this factor is examined

A typical SQA profile for the social factor:

Describe questions. Describing social factors that affected a team.
Explain questions. Explaining a positive and a negative impact of a social factor on performance.
Development questions. Describing an approach used to develop cohesion and explaining how it improved performance.
Linked questions. Connecting the social factor to the development process and to tactics (how roles and communication support a team's tactics).

Check your knowledge

A mix of recall and explanation questions covering the factor. Attempt them, then check against the solutions.

Name the main features of the social factor examined at Higher. (2 marks)
Explain one positive impact of good communication on team performance. (2 marks)
Why do clear roles and responsibilities help a team? (2 marks)
Explain one negative impact of poor relationships on performance. (2 marks)
Describe one approach used to develop team cohesion. (2 marks)

Sources & how we know this

SQA Higher Physical Education Course Specification — SQA (2019)