Abstract:

The aim of this study was to determine mental toughness of badminton athletes and to examine mental toughness in terms of different variables (gender, age, national/international, sports year). A total of 263 athletes, (114 men, 149 women) voluntarily athletes participated in the study. Within the scope of the research, the data was collected by personal information form prepared by the researchers and "Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTTQ)" developed by Sheard et. al (2009) and Turkish adaptation was performed by Altıntaş and Koruç (2016). Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients of the scale are; Confidence is 0.72, Continuity is 0.71 and Control is 0.66. Firstly, a normality test was applied to the data obtained from the scale. As a result of the normality test applied, T-test in binary group comparisons for data with normal distribution, One-way Anova Test in group comparisons of three or more; In the data without normal distribution, Mann Whitneu-U and Kruskal Wallis H test was applied. Data were tested at α = 0.05 significance level. The findings of the study showed that badminton athletes mental toughness levels were influenced by age, gender, national /international status and sports year. According to the findings, it was seen that mental toughness score of total scores and confidence sub-dimension scores significantly differs according to the age. According to the gender variable, there is a significant difference between the average of confidence, control, Continuity sub-dimension scores and total scores in the mental toughness of the athletes. According to the national/international variable, there is a significant difference between the average of confidence sub-dimension scores and total scores in the mental toughness of the athletes. According to the sports year variable, there is a significant difference between the average of confidence sub-dimension scores and total scores in the mental toughness of the athletes. As a result, the special athletes who participated in the Turkey badminton championships, age, sex, year and is the national sport do / not to say that the variables have an effect on mental toughness of athletes.

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