Anxiety and Achievement Motivation of Male and Female Table Tennis Players

Anxiety is a temporary condition caused by one immediate perception of the environment. Anxiety refers to that emotional state of mind where fear of danger or loss or suffering is a prominent feature. It generally arises as a result of fear of something unknown, which creates tension and disturbance. Achievement motivation is an effective arousal state directing behavior in an achievement oriented activity cognitively appraised as potentially satisfying. Achievement motivation is the tendency to endeavor for success and to choose goal oriented success or failure activities. Motivation inspires an individual to do something. It is that psychophysical condition of the organism which causes an individual to work and strive to fulfill his needs. There is a close relationship between achievement and anxiety. Achievement motivation is an effective arousal state which directs the human behavior for successful participation in sports competition. There should be an optimum level of achievement and motivation for participation in competition at different levels namely, state, national and international levels. One should have a desired level of anxiety and achievement to meet the task to be accomplished in competitive sports. The researchers felt that it is worthwhile to examine the relationship between achievement motivation and anxiety of male and female table tennis players.

For the purpose of the study, a total of thirty (15 males and 15 female) table tennis players were randomly selected to serve as subjects of the study, who had participated in west zone Inter- University Table Tennis Tournament. Age of the subjects was ranged between 18 to 25 years. The sport achievement motivation test standardized by Dr. M.L. Kamlesh was administered one hour before the competition and sports competition anxiety test designed by Rainer Marten was administered one day prior to the competition to collect the data from male and female table tennis players. There was no time limit for the completion of the questionnaire but the subjects were instructed not to ponder too long over any statement and respond all the statements in the questionnaire independently. Researcher took permission from the coaches/managers of the concerned teams for administering the questionnaire. Subjects were ensured that the responses given by them on the questionnaire would be strictly confidential and not be revealed to anyone. It was hypothesized that there will be significant relationship between achievements motivation and anxiety of male and female table tennis players.

Relationship between achievements motivation and anxiety of male and female table tennis players were

To examine the relationship between achievements motivation and anxiety of male and female table tennis players Pearson’s product moment co-efficient of correlation was employed. The scores obtained as responses in questionnaire from male and female table tennis players were correlated and the data pertaining to this has been presented in Table – 1.

From the findings it is very much evident that the score of Coefficient of correlations between achievement motivation and anxiety of male and female table tennis players observed, was not significant (Ho rejected) as the value required to be significant at 0.05 level of significance with 13 degrees of freedom is 0.574. This insignificant relationship may be attributed due to the fact that the inter-university level male and female table tennis players were highly trained and belong to elite group of sportsman. They are exposed to higher level of participation and they were having balanced anxiety level with high achievement motivation. They are highly focused for accomplishment of their goals so they have shown insignificant relationship with anxiety.

Clarke and David H. and Clarke H. Harrison (1984). Research Process in Physical Education (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall Inc. Jones Earl R. (1973). “The Effect of anxiety and need for achievement on the performance of high school’ wrestlers”, Completed Research in Health, Physical Education and Recreation. stress and performance in sport. In G. Jones & L. Hardy (Eds.), Stress and Performance in Sport, Wiley, Chichester, pp. 17-42. Kamlesh M.L. (1983). “Psychology of Physical Education and Sports” (New Delhi): Metropolitan Book Company. Murphy, S. M. (1988). The on-site provision of sport psychology services at the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival. The Sport Psychologist, 2, pp. 337-351.

ITTF International Umpire, Physical Education Teacher, Indian School, Muscat, Oman E-Mail – pushppurashwani@gmail.com