The attentional style and competitive anxiety in Tae Kwon Do practitioners

The purpose of this study was to determine whether attentional and/or anxiety characteristics are related to performance of Tae Kwon Do forms among the beginning and intermediate practitioners in Tae Kwon Do, and to examine the relationship between the sport competitive anxiety and Tae Kwon Do performance.

The subjects (N=37) for this study were 17 beginning, 10 intermediate, and 10 advanced Tae Kwon Do practitioners, and all were at least 18 years old. To investigate the research hypotheses, TAIS, SCAT, CSAI-2, and behavioral measurement were used as the assessment instruments. One- way ANOVA, correlation, I-test, and simple statistical analyses were conducted to analyze the data.

The results of this study indicated that, first, advanced Tae Kwon Do practitioners scored significantly higher on the Broad Internal subscale (BIT) of the TAIS than the beginning practitioners. However, the intermediate level practitioners were not significantly different from either the beginning or advanced level performers. Second, high scoring practitioners on the INFP (Information Processing) scale scored much higher than normal-ranged scoring practitioners and made much fewer mistakes on the belt improving test. Finally, the low mistakes group scored much lower than high mistake group in cognitive state anxiety subscale of the CSAI-2. Those conclusions supported the theory and research of Nideffer (1976b, 1981, 1990) and Martens et al. (1977, 1983). However, the results of this field are still controversial.