Pre-Competition Anxiety Between Male and Female Basketball Players: a Comparative Study

Modern sports has become a very complex behavioural issue for excellence in serious competitive sports which includes genetic endowment, generally good environment and highly specialized psychological training that are needed to produce and individual sportsmen of reckoning.[1] Anxiety is one of the most common deterrents to good performance. At worst the effect of anxiety gets the athlete so tied up in knots that he is frozen in fear. At best anxiety subtly impairs performance by distracting the attention. Anxiety is one of the greatest problems of modern trends in scientific knowledge, cultural, conflicts, economic, problem, industrialization, all add to the problem of man, thus increasing the anxiety level, anxiety refers to that emotional state of mind where a fear of danger or loss of hearing is a prominent feature. It generally arises as a result of fear of something unknown creates tension and disturbance.[2] Anxiety may be positive motivation force or it may interfere with successful athletic performances. As a positive motivating force it can be instrumental in motivating the athlete to work harder to find new and better ways to improve performances and to help set goals. The athletic skills and his self-confidence as a negative motivator anxiety may interfere with productive as well as constructive thinking. Athletes may attempt to handle anxiety by denying the need to work hard. This can lead to development of poor work habits or athletic technique. These often lead to failure and, in turn, lack of confidence and increased anxiety.[3] The over anxious individual has a high level of cerebral and emotional activity with neuro-muscular tension that may eventually lead the individual to the exhaustion stage and perhaps to psychosomatic disorders.[4] The effect of anxiety on performance depends directly on type of task considered. In most cases the heightened arousal state has been found to facilitate simple performance such as fingers tapping, eyelids, and conditioning and verbal memory task. On the other hand as anxiety reaches a certain level, a breakdown of psychological and physiological integrative mechanism is often seen to occurred, resulting is less efficient performance is more complex task.[5] Anxiety plays a paramount role in sports. It is the challenge in sports participation which produces anxiety. How an athlete handles the anxiety determines how successful he would be. Anxiety may be a positive motivating force or it may interfere with successful performance in sports events. The degree of anxiety also varies with a number of different conditions. Anxiety is likely to be greater in higher competitive sports than in relatively non competitive sports, because in the competitive sports, participants are expected to win a great demands are made up on then to succeed.

PURPOSE

The main purpose of this study was to compare the pre-competition anxiety between male and female basketball players of inter university.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The finding of the present study would help the Coaches, sports trainers, sports administrator and 1. The results of the study would give information regarding the relationship of pre-competition anxiety to playing performance of inter university basketball players. 2. The results of the study would also help to understand the behavior of inter university basketball players during competition. 3. The finding of study would provide the guideline to the future research investigation in sports psychology and sports sciences to conduct further research in this field.

METHODOLOGY

The samples consisted of 30 male and female basketball players of north zone inter university. These samples were selected from top four teams of north zone inter university. Their age ranged between 19-25 years.

INTRODUCTION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES

Sports Competition Anxiety Test(SCAT) Questionnaire- It was prepared by Rainer Martens. The test had widely used for measuring anxiety related to sports situations in most of the advanced countries. The test is reliable and valid. The pre-competition anxiety questionnaire had 15 items out of which 5 were spurious questions which was added to the questionnaire to diminish response bias towards actual test items. These 5 questions were not scored. The subject was instructed to respond to each item according to how he generally felt at the time of competition. Every student had three possible responses i.e.1.Hardly 2.Sometimes 3.Often The 10 test items, which were taken for scoring purpose, were 2,3,5,6,8,9,11,12,14 and 15.The remaining items i.e. spurious items, which were not scored out, were 1,4,7,10,and 13. The scholar to ensure that the subjects responded to every item and there was no question left unanswered scrutinized the completed questionnaire. The items 2,3,5,6,8,9,11,12,14 and 15 were worded in such a manner that they scored accordingly to the following key: However spurious questions i.e. 1,4,7,10 and 13 were not scored out as suggested by Rainer Martens. To examine the pre-competition anxiety between male and female basketball players, the pre-competition anxiety questionnaire (SCAT) developed by Rainer Marten was used. It consisted of 15 statements related to competitive situations. Scores obtained by each subjects on each statement were added up which represented one’s total score on pre-competition anxiety. Scores obtained on anxiety questionnaire by subjects of various inter universities were added separately and score sheets evaluated in accordance with the instruction laid down in the manual of the test. The data collected was analyzed by using raw scores and ANOVA test at 0.05level of significance.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The result is shown in the table-1: Table- 1 SIGNIFICANCE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE OF INTER UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL PLAYERS ON PRE COMPETITION ANXIETY

From the table-2 the pre-competition anxiety between male and female differ in their pre competition anxiety scores, which were measured by pre-competition anxiety questionnaire.

CONCLUSIONS

Within the limitation of the present study and on the basis of the results following conclusion is drowning. 1. The study revealed that male and female differ significantly in pre-competition anxiety from each other.

RECOMMENDATION

1. Same study may be conducted by taking beginners advanced and professional players as a subject. 2. Same study may be conducted among players of different age groups. 3. Same study may be conducted considering different physiological and psychological variables. 4. Similar study may be repeated by dividing the subjects into different levels i.e. District Level and International Level.

[1] Jack H. Llewellyn and Judy A. Bucker, Psychology of Coaching: Theory and Application, New Delhi Surjeet Publication,(1982),p.7. [2] K. C. Kocher and V. Pratap, “Anxiety level your practices”, Yoga Mimamsa,(15 April,1972),p.11. [3]Encyclopaedia of Sports and Science and Medicine, Ed;1971, “Individual Adjustment to Social Practices and Characteristics”. [4]Rajendra Singh, “Pre-Competition Anxiety and its Remedy”, A Journal of Sports Medicine,(LNCPE,Gwalior),Vol.III,p.50. [5] Bryan J. Cratty, “Anxiety and Performance” Movement Behavior and Motor Learning, (Philadelphia Lea and Febeger,1975),p.290.