Comparison of Anxiety Among Different Levels of Soccer Players

Proficiency in any sport and game requires the ideal combination and interaction of numerous abilities developed to an ideal degree. However performance measures of this ability very from activity to activity. Anxiety is related to emotional stability, tough-mindedness and confidence, a person who possesses the above qualities is equipped to handle anxiety and convert it is into something very productive. Anxiety may be motivating force or it may interfere with successful athletic performance. As a positive motivating force it can be instrumental in motivating the athlete to work harder to find new and better ways to improve performance and to help set goals. The athlete who uses his anxiety in this well seek out ways to improve himself, not only reduces anxiety but also help him to increase his athletic skills and his self confidence.

Sixty male Soccer players of different levels were selected as subjects for this study. Players who had participated in U.P. State Football Championship were formed higher performance group and those who had participated in open district championship but could not be selected to represent the District team formed the “low performance” group, each group consisted of 30 players and their age range from 17 to 25 years. In order to find out the competitive sport Anxiety of Soccer players C.S.A.I-2 form was applied. The Questionnaire consists of 27 statements which had an evaluation range from 1 = not at all to 4 = very much so. The Questionnaire assesses the following two components and third factor – (A). Cognitive Anxiety (B). Somatic Anxiety. (c) Self Confidence. In order to find the competition Anxiety of the subjects, the scores on the above mentioned factors were added up. In order to assess the significant difference between high performance and low performance Soccer players on Competition Anxiety, the t-ratio was applied. The level of significance was set at .05.

To determine the significance of mean difference between low and high performance Soccer players with regard to their psychological dimensions Anxiety status is presented in table-1

* Significant at 0.05 level of confidence. ‘t’ value required to be significant at 0.05 level with 58 degree of freedom is 2.0 The analysis of data in table -1 shows that there is no significant difference between high and low level performance ability Soccer players in the dimension of Anxiety as the obtained‘t’ value of 1.36 is lower than the required ‘t’ value of 2.0 at 0.05 level of confidence.

Insignificant difference between the high and low performance Soccer players in the dimension of anxiety may be attributed to the fact that regular participation in game of Soccer by both category of players might have produced in them the quality of emotional stability, tough-mindedness and self confidence and these qualities equip the person to handle anxiety appropriately by keeping it at optimum level.

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