Abstract

The objectives of this study were (i) to analyse how differences in psychological skills among elite athletes depend on sex and psychological skills training (PST), and (ii) to identify predictors of whether an elite athlete has sought PST. Three hundred and ninety-six Icelandic members of youth and senior national teams (49.2% men 21.4 ± 7.1 years old) in basketball, equestrian sports, football, golf, handball and weightlifting participated in the study. The participants completed a background information questionnaire and the Test of Performance Strategies questionnaire (TOPS). The former collected information about age, sex, sport practiced, and whether or not the respondent used or was interested in using PST. The latter assessed the psychological skills the respondent used in training and competition. An independent-samples t-test was used to compare the means on the TOPS sub-scales between sexes and between the use or not of PST. A forward stepwise logistic regression model was constructed to determine which of the variables (age, sex and TOPS sub-scales) could predict whether or not the sportsperson had used PST. PST was used by 42% of the respondents, but the 90% were interested in this type of training. Golfers used PST the most (56%), and men used PS more than women, especially in competition. It was possible to correctly classify 59% of the cases (23% of the variance explained) as to whether or not the participant used PST using just five variables: relaxation in practice, negative thinking in competition, age, self-talk in competition and imagery in practice.

摘要

这项研究的目的是（i）分析精英运动员之间的心理技能差异如何取决于性别和心理技能训练（PST），以及（ii）识别精英运动员是否寻求PST的预测因子。参加篮球，马术运动，足球，高尔夫，手球和举重的136名冰岛青年和高级国家队成员（49.2％，男性为2​​1.4±7.1岁）参加了研究。参与者完成了背景信息问卷和绩效策略测试问卷（TOPS）。前者收集了有关年龄，性别，从事体育运动以及被调查者是否使用或对使用PST感兴趣的信息。后者评估了受访者在训练和比赛中使用的心理技能。独立样本t检验用于比较男女之间以及是否使用PST的TOPS子量表上的均值。构建了逐步逻辑回归模型，以确定哪个变量（年龄，性别和TOPS子量表）可以预测运动员是否使用过PST。42％的受访者使用了PST，但90％的人对这种培训感兴趣。高尔夫球手使用PST的比例最高（56％），男性使用PS的比例高于女性，尤其是在比赛中。可以正确地对59％的案例进行分类（解释了23％的差异），即参与者是否仅使用以下五个变量使用了PST：练习放松，比赛中的消极思维，年龄，比赛中的自言自语和实践中的图像。