Comparison of the sports competition anxiety and mental toughness among male hockey and football players

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to compare sports competition anxiety and mental toughness among male Hockey and Football players. Also, an attempt was made to investigate the mental toughness among male Hockey and Football players (and also compare the sub factors of mental toughness). The subjects of the study were 200 male Hockey and Football players. They were representatives of their college level in the age group of 18-25 years chosen randomly from various parts of Thrissur in Kerala. There were 100 athletes taken in each category of the sport mentioned above. The Sports Competition anxiety Test Questionnaire (SCAT, Martens, 1990) and The Psychological Performance Inventory of Mental Toughness Questionnaire (Alan Goldberg, 2004) were administered as the tools to measure the Sports Competition Anxiety and Mental toughness of the subjects respectively. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation of the scores were calculated to summarize the collected raw data. Independent sample t test was applied to compare the two groups with respect to the anxiety and the mental toughness. The level of significance was fixed at 0.05 level. A calculated P value less than 0.05 is considered to be statistically significant.