The Relationship Between Mental Skills and Level of Cricket Participation
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MENTAL SKILLS AND LEVEL OF CRICKET PARTICIPATION by JULIUS JOOSTE Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MAGISTER ARTIUM (HUMAN MOVEMENT SCIENCES) in the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences, University of Pretoria Supervisor: Dr. J.G.U. van Wyk Co-Supervisor: Prof. B.J.M. Steyn 2012 © University of Pretoria DECLARATIONS I, Julius Jooste, herewith declare that the language (set to UK English) of this research report has been edited by Mrs. Eileen Pearse, freelance editor and translator, employed at Unisa Language Services from 1982 to 2011, member of the Professional Editors’ Group and of ZaLang. I, Julius Jooste, also hereby declare that this research for the degree, Magister Artium (Human Movement Sciences) at the University of Pretoria, has not previously been submitted by me for the degree at this or any other university, that it is my own work in design and execution, and that all materials from published sources contained herein have been duly acknowledged. _____________________ Julius Jooste Researcher ___________________________ Date i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dr. Jan van Rensburg, thank you for encouraging me and instilling in me a need to continue my personal professional development. Thank you, Dr. Gerrie van Wyk for being so critical about scrutinising my work. This has contributed greatly to my knowledge regarding research and it eventually led to a study of which I am very proud. Thank you, Prof. Ben Steyn for your valuable insight, warm, kind-hearted approach and assistance. My gratitude is also extended to Mrs. Christine Smit for her assistance with the statistics of this study and to all the coaches and players who devoted their time and efforts to making this study possible. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my good friend Mr. Evert Laubscher for sharing his astute thoughts and ideas on cricket. Mom, Ami and Jamila, you are the rays that light up my life. This is for you. Thanks to the Almighty. Julius Jooste July 2012 “What does he of cricket know if cricket’s all he knows” C.L.R James ii SUMMARY Title: The relationship between mental skills and level of cricket participation Candidate: Julius Jooste Degree: Magister Artium (Human Movement Sciences) Department: Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences, University of Pretoria Supervisor: Dr. J.G.U. van Wyk Co-Supervisor: Prof. B.J.M. Steyn Research findings have supported a relationship between psychological characteristics and optimal performance states, indicating that elite and successful sports participants are more motivated, committed, self-confident, focused and able to peak under pressure compared to non-elite and less successful participants. The reason for this is that a human being’s biomechanical and physiological harmonisation of movement is mediated by various aspects of psychological involvement. The psychological components of physical-skills execution in sport can be enhanced by the corrective application of mental-skills training. Personalised mental- skills training enables participants to understand their cognitions in order to allow a degree of flow in the coordination and execution of task-related skills through the various mood states of participation. A participant’s ability to control the mental and emotional aspects associated with competition not only facilitates task performance but also serves as a psychological keystone of self-belief and wellbeing. Sports psychology has recently directed its focus to identifying psychological skills relevant to different types of individual and team sports for the purpose of providing on-the-field psychological support. Investigations in South Africa, addressing the psychological constructs conducive to performance in cricket are limited, at both the professional and the amateur levels of competition. At this stage, there are no documented findings available in which the iii relationship between mental skills and skilled performance in cricket is addressed. Therefore, research questions for this study are formulated as: “Are there significant differences in the psychological background information on cricket players from different levels of cricket competition?” “Is there a significant relationship between mental skills and the level of cricket player participation?” “Is there a significant relationship between mental skills and the specialised roles played in cricket?” “Is there is a significant relationship between mental skills and batting order in cricket?” The study was approached from a quantitative (descriptive) perspective since it was the perceptions and mental skills relative to cricket players’ levels of participation that were assessed. A questionnaire assessing the general perspectives on psychology of respondents, and three other standardised psychometric measures (Competitive Anxiety Inventory-2 [Martens et al., 1990]; The Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 [Smith et al., 1995], and Bull’s Mental Skills Questionnaire [Bull et al., 1996]) with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranging between 0.79 and 0.90, were used as research instruments. These Likert-type scale questionnaires were administered to 127 cricket players (30.7% Junior Academy; 53.6% Premier League/Senior Academy and 15.7% Senior Provincial players) to explore their general psychological background information and the mental skills differences between three progressive levels of cricket participation established and recognised by the Northerns Cricket Union (NCU) in the Pretoria Gauteng region of South Africa. Other aims were to investigate the relationship between mental skills and the different tasks (e.g. batting, bowling, wicket keeping) performed in cricket and as well as to investigate the relationship between mental skills and batting order. Overall results obtained from the respondents’ general psychological background information revealed that cricket players, regardless of level of participation, have insufficient exposure to, training in and knowledge of the psychological aspects associated with cricket performance. It is evident from the results that cricket players spent limited time on psychological-skills training iv and that they exercise only the physiological and skills-related aspects of the game. One-way analysis of variance (one-way Anova) indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the three levels of participating respondents in terms of their performance in the various mental-skills and coping-skills subscales. Analysis of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 subscales indicated no statistically significant differences in the cognitive and somatic anxiety scores between the three levels of participation. However, a statistically significant difference was found in terms of self-confidence in the senior provincial players whose scores were higher on this construct than those of the other two levels of cricket participants. A comparison of the performance of the various specialised roles in cricket on the mental skills questionnaire indicated that the all-rounders had significantly higher imagery ability and motivation scores than batsmen and bowlers. The various specialised roles showed a very similar outcome on the cognitive, somatic and state self-confidence levels. A significant difference in batting order was revealed in top-order batsmen scoring the highest on motivation and lower-order batsmen scoring the highest on coachability. No other mental-skills difference existed between the different groups of batting order. The conclusion was that, in essence, there are no mental-skills differences between cricket players from various levels of participation in the one-day cricket format. A definite psychological-skills profile did come to the fore, indicating that successful cricket participants, regardless of what level of competition they compete in, express high proficiencies in motivation, self-confidence, coachability, imagery ability, concentration ability and peaking under pressure. The study concludes with recommendations for expanding knowledge on the direction and intensity of mental skills in contributing to cricket performance. A more holistic view on the psychological differences between successful and less successful cricket participants at the same level of participation is recommended as well as a comparison between the mental skills of one- day and multiple-day cricket players. Sports psychologists and cricket coaches are also v encouraged to collate their experience and expertise in developing and implementing individualised psychological-skills-training (PST) programmes to satisfy the players’ psychological needs when dealing with the performance demands of the game. Implications for further investigations are listed since there were several aspects that did not fall within the aims of this investigation. Key words: cricket, level of participation, mental skills vi OPSOMMING Titel: Die verwantskap tussen psigologiese vaardighede en vlak van krieket deelname Kandidaat: Julius Jooste Graad: Magister Artium (Menslike Bewegingskunde) Departement: Biokinetika, Sport en Vryetydwetenskappe, Universiteit van Pretoria Studieleier: Dr. J.G.U. van Wyk Medestudieleier: Prof. B.J.M. Steyn Navorsingsbevindings staaf die verwantskap tussen psigologiese kenmerke en optimale prestasievlakke, en dui op ’n groter mate van motivering, toewyding, selfvertroue en fokus by elite- en suksesvolle sportdeelnemers wat, in teenstelling met niegekeurde en onsuksesvolle sportlui, in