Abstract:

This study was carried out to examine the effect of mental training skills of athlete students, who are studying at the Sport Sciences Faculty, in predicting the level of commitment to sports. In the study, sub-dimensions of the mental training scale in sports were considered as predictive variables and it was purposed to observe the impact of these variables on the level of commitment to sports. The study group was comprised of 240 athlete students, who are interested in different sport branches and pursuing their education in the Sport Sciences Faculty in a State University in Türkiye. In the data collection, the Mental Training Inventory in Sport (MTIS) and Scale of Engagement to Sports (SES) were utilized. In addition, the frequency analysis was utilized to analyze the dispersion of participants’ demographic data. After the scale scores were obtained, their obedience to the normal dispersion was examined with Kolmogrov Smirnov and Shapiro Wilks test and it was found that the scale scores were appropriate for the normal dispersion. In addition, the regression model was utilized to examine the impact of MTIS on commitment to sports. Moreover, the t-test and one-way analysis of variance in independent groups were utilized to analyze whether the scales differed significantly or not, according to demographic information. The analyses were performed with utilizing the SPSS 20.0 software with the confidence level of 95%. By virtue of this study, it was revealed that the level of commitment to sports of national athletes is high, the level of commitment to sports increases with the increase in the age, and the level of commitment to sports is partially high for those who are interested in team sports. In addition, the multivariate regression results showed that sports commitment did not predict the mental training skills in sports. According to the findings of the study, it can be stated that mental training skills in sports do not have an effect on the sports commitment of the participants.

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