Elite Wheelchair Rugby Players' Mental Skills and Sport Engagement

Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2013, 7, 253-263 © 2013 Human Kinetics, Inc.

www.JCSP-Journal.com ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Elite Wheelchair Rugby Players’ Mental Skills and Sport Engagement Jeffrey J. Martin Wayne State University

Laurie A. Malone Lakeshore Foundation Although sport psychologists have started to examine elite disability sport, studies of comprehensive mental skill use are rare. In the current study, we examined multidimensional imagery and self-talk, as well as comprehensive mental skills (i.e., coping with adversity, goal setting, concentration, peaking under pressure, being coachable, confident, and feeling free from worry). In addition to descriptive data, we also were interested in the ability of athlete’s mental skills to predict engagement (e.g., being dedicated). Fourteen elite level wheelchair rugby players from the United States participated, and results indicated that athletes employed most mental skills. We accounted for 50% of the variance in engagement with comprehensive mental skills (β = .72, p = .03) contributing the most to the regression equation, while imagery (β = -.02, p = .94) and self-talk (β = -.00, p = .99) were not significant. Athletes who reported using a host of mental skills (e.g., coping with adversity) also reported being engaged (e.g., dedicated, enthused, committed) to wheelchair rugby. Athletes reporting minimal mental skill use were less engaged. Keywords: mental skills, Paralympics, sport psychology

Sport psychologists have slowly amassed a body of knowledge about mental skill use among elite able-bodied athletes (e.g., Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffet, 2002). For instance, Olympic athletes have been characterized as mentally tough, competitive, hardworking, optimistic, focused, and confident (Gould et al., 2002). Unfortunately, relative to able-bodied athletes, very little is known about the mental skill use of athletes with disabilities and most of that research has been conducted with nonelite athletes. For example, in a review (Jefferies, Gallagher, & Dunne, 2012) of 16 research studies on Paralympic athletes, only one study included information on general psychological skills (Cox & Davis, 1992) while failing to assess self-talk or imagery. Mental skill use among elite level athletes is important to understand because at the elite level mental skills may be particularly Jeffrey J. Martin is with Wayne State University. Laurie A. Malone is with the Lakeshore Foundation. 253

254 Martin and Malone

critical to both perform well (Martin, Malone, & Hilyer, 2011) and to cope with the stress associated with the pressure to win (Dieffenbach, & Statler, 2012). For example, maintaining focus as a result of well-developed concentration skills can make the difference between winning or losing, medaling or not medaling, or setting a personal best where miniscule differences are quite important. As noted by Martin, Malone and Hilyer (2011), Oleksandra Kononova of the Ukraine won the 2010 Paralympic 5 km cross country skiing gold medal by 2.4 s or .0025 of her total time. Being able to fully relax as a function of well-developed relaxation and imagery skills is critical to sleeping well when at a major competition (e.g., Paralympics), away from home, and in a different time zone (Silva et al., 2010). Finally, the ability to emotionally regulate is important and can influence the quality of both practice and competition (Hanin & Syrjä, 1996). Although a small body of knowledge on the mental skills of elite athletes with disabilities is slowly developing, much of that research has focused on mental factors associated (e.g., personality) with performance or a narrow focus on one specific topic (e.g., coping with stress) in Paralympians (Campbell & Jones, 2002; Martin et al., 2011). For instance, Martin et al. (2011) found that the Gold Medal winning USA Women’s Paralympic basketball team scored higher on tough-mindedness and vigor and lower in anxiety, depressed mood, and confusion compared with those who narrowly failed to make the team after attending the Paralympic selection team camp. Differences were meaningful as exemplified by the moderate to large effect sizes. To our knowledge, research assessing all of the most common mental skills (e.g., self-talk, imagery, emotional regulation, relaxation) with elite athletes with disabilities is quite scarce. Hence, the first goal of the current study is to address that research gap by assessing and describing common mental skills among elite American wheelchair rugby players. A second goal was to predicate engagement (i.e., being dedicated, enthused, and committed) in sport using mental skills. Although mental skill use is often advocated for performance enhancement reasons, mental skills have also been lauded as a means for handling stress in sport and avoiding burnout. By extension, it seems reasonable that in addition to helping athletes manage stress, mental skills may also promote positive affect and provide a pathway to sport engagement. For instance, mental skills are often cited as tools that can help athletes get into flow. In turn, engagement is related to flow (Hodge, Lonsdale, & Jackson, 2009). According to Lonsdale, Hodge, and Jackson (2007) athletes who are strongly engaged in their sport are dedicated, feel alive while participating in sport, are confident and determined, and are excited and enthused about their sport. Hence, the major premise of our study is that athletes who employ a variety of common mental skills will report greater sport engagement relative to athletes who engage in mental skill use to a lesser degree. Engagement is important to understand because it is, in part, a measure of the quality of an athlete’s sport experience. Many sport psychologists have argued that enhancing the sport experience, as well helping athletes perform better, are equally important goals (Martin, 1999). Because engagement is thought to be the opposite of burnout, developing engagement can help prevent burnout and presumably, sport dropout (Hodge et al., 2009). Self-talk is a common mental skill that might promote engagement. Athletes often use self-talk for two broad purposes. First, positive self-talk is used often

Mental Skills and Sport Engagement of Wheelchair Players 255

to maintain and enhance motivation (Hardy, Gammage, & Hall, 2001). A second function is cognitive in nature (e.g., direct attention, enhance concentration, and decrease negative thoughts; Zervas, Stavrou, & Psychountaki, 2007). We assessed both forms of self-talk in the current study with the expectation that the elite athletes in our study would engage in moderate to strong levels of self-talk. Because self-talk can be used to regulate affect and enhance motivation, it seems plausible that athletes who use it for such purposes would be more likely to be engaged in sport compared with athletes who did not use self-talk for such reasons. Therefore, we predicted that athletes who engaged in more self-talk would be more likely to report higher levels of engagement. Similar to self-talk, imagery has also been perpetrated to have both motivational and cognitive functions depending on the content of imagery (Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998). Furthermore, it is thought that both types of imagery can be used to achieve general versus specific goals. For instance, a wheelchair rugby player could use cognitive general imagery to image him or herself successfully following the coaches game plan. In addition, the same athlete could cognitively image making a hard left turn to block an opposing player’s favorite move. We anticipated that the elite wheelchair rugby players in the current study would report moderate to high levels of all types of imagery. Similar to the rationale for self-talk, athletes who use imagery to regulate emotion and enhance motivation should have stronger levels of engagement relative to athletes who use imagery more infrequently for such reasons. Hence, we predicted that higher levels of imagery would be linked to higher levels of engagement. We should also emphasize that both self-talk and imagery are used to enhance performance which should provide an indirect path to engagement. Stated differently, if athletes perform well as a function of using self-talk and imagery, we believe they are more likely to be engaged in their sport. Finally, in addition to self-talk and imagery, we assessed a broad set of athletic coping skills (i.e., coping with adversity, goal setting, concentration, peaking under pressure, being coachable, confident, and feeling free from worry). We believe that all of the above coping skills, in varying degrees, facilitate engagement both directly and indirectly. For instance, athletes who effectively cope with adversity and are free from worry (two coping skills we measured) should experience less negative affect and more positive affect. In turn, a more positive sport experience should lead to greater engagement. Athletes who are coachable should enjoy more positive relationships with the coaching staff which in turn should contribute to a better quality of sport experience and lead to more engagement. Finally, more specific coping skills such as concentration, goal setting and peaking under pressure should enhance performance which may indirectly promote engagement. In brief, although exploratory in nature, we hypothesized that coping skills should be positively related to engagement.

Method Participants Fourteen athletes representing the 2009 USA Wheelchair Rugby National Team took part in a team selection training camp for a spot to compete on the 2010 World Championship team. Eight of the 14 players were selected for the 2010 USA


Wheelchair Rugby National Team that competed at the 2010 World Championship. Four of the players had won Paralympic Gold medals in 2008. Athletes ranged in ages from 18 to 37 years (M = 28.4, SD = 6.0). Disability type and severity of spinal cord injury (SCI) were as follows: Cervical (C) 7 incomplete (n = 4); C6–7 incomplete (n = 2); C6–7 (n = 2): C6 incomplete (n = 2): C3–4, T7 incomplete (n = 1): Quad amputee (n = 1); HSAN Type 2 (n = 1): C5–6 incomplete (n = 1). Eight athletes were paralyzed due to SCI injury due to traumatic events (e.g., car accidents) or birth complications. Two athletes had serious knee dysfunction; one was a bilateral amputee; and one athlete had spina bifidia.

Procedure We received permission from the University Internal Review Board, the Lakeshore Foundation, and the wheelchair rugby coach, as well as informed consent from individual athletes to conduct our study. Athletes completed all surveys before a morning practice at the beginning of a 5-day training camp.

Instruments All instruments have been used in previous research with athletes and have demonstrated strong reliability and validity (Hall et al., 1998; Smith, Schutz, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1995; Zervas et al., 2007). Demographic scale. The demographic information provided by athletes included their name, age, gender, ethnicity, years since injury, injury level (e.g., C7 vs. C5), and years of experience in wheelchair rugby. Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28). Participants completed the

Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28: Smith et al., 1995). Participants answered 28 questions on a 4-point Likert scale with 0 representing “almost never” and 3 representing “almost always.” There are 7 subscales represented by 4 items. Each subscale name and a sample item are provided next: • Coping with adversity (“I maintain emotional control no matter how things are going for me.”) • Peaking under pressure (“The more pressure there is during a game, the more I enjoy it.”) • Goal setting/mental preparation (“I set my own performance goals for each practice.”) • Concentration (“I handle unexpected situations in my sport very well.”) • Freedom from worry (“I put a lot of pressure on myself by worrying how I will perform.”) • Confidence and achievement motivation (“I feel confident that I will play well.”) • Coachability (“If a coach criticizes or yells at me, I correct the mistake without getting upset.”)


Six items were reversed scored, and then all items were summed and divided by four to obtain mean subscale scores. Research with the ACSI-28 has produced evidence of adequate reliability and validity (Smith et al., 1995). Imagery. We used the 30 item Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) developed by Hall et al. (1998). The SIQ assesses five different types of imagery across the two major dimensions of motivational and cognitive imagery function with six questions per subscale. The imagery types and example items are as follows:

• Cognitive general (“I make up new plans/strategies in my head.”) • Cognitive specific (“I can easily change an image of a skill.”) • Motivational general-mastery (I imagine myself being mentally tough.”) • Motivational general-arousal (“I imagine the excitement associated with competing.”) • Motivation specific (“I imagine myself winning a medal.”) Anchors were “rarely” (1) and “often” (7). Items were summed and divided by 6 for average subscale scores. Adequate internal consistency (α = .85–.89) and construct validity via Confirmatory Factor Analysis was established during scale development. Self-talk. We used the 11 item Self-Talk Questionnaire (S-TK) developed by Zervas et al. (2007). The S-TK has two subscales that assess using self-talk for motivational reasons and self-talk for cognitive reasons. The motivational self-talk subscale has seven items. An example item is, “I talk to myself to motivate myself.” The cognitive self-talk subscale has four items and an example item is, “I talk to myself to correct my mistakes.” Anchors were “never” (1) and “always” (5). Items were summed and divided by seven or four for average subscale scores. Zervas et al. (2007) established adequate internal consistency (α = .83–.92), test-retest reliability (r = .76–.85), construct validity via Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and satisfactory discriminatory and convergent validity. Engagement. To assess athlete’s level of engagement in wheelchair rugby, we used the Athlete Engagement Questionnaire (AEQ) developed by Lonsdale et al. (2007). The AEQ has four subscales with subscale names and sample items as follows:

• Vigor (“I feel really alive when I participate in sport.”) • Dedication (“I am determined to achieve my goals in sport.”) • Confidence (“I believe I am capable of accomplishing my goals in sport.”) • Enthusiasm (“I feel excited about sport.”) Athletes responded to a 5-point Likert scale with 1 indicating “almost never” and 5 indicating “almost always.” Lonsdale et al. (2007) have confirmed the factor structure through adequate fit indices with Confirmatory Factor Analysis and satisfactory reliability (α = .84–.89).


Results Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Initial screening suggested that, in general, variables were normally distributed. For example, skew and kurtosis ranged from -1.40 to + 1.90 (Cramer, 1998) for all variables except for dedication engagement (skew = -2.2), self-talk cognitive (kurtosis = 3.2), and engagement dedication (kurtosis = 4.0). Means, standard deviations and alphas for each scale are presented in Table 1. Cronbach alphas were all considered acceptable although the imagery motivational general mastery subscale was questionable (α = .59; Cronbach, 1951). Therefore we deleted the imagery general mastery subscale from all further analyses. Means and standard deviations indicated moderate to high levels of mental skill use and engagement. For instance, for the 7 coping skills all means were above the midpoint of the scale (i.e., 1.5) and ranged slightly over and above 2 which is represented by “often.” The self-talk subscales were also above 3 on the 5 point scale while imagery subscale scores ranged around 5 on the 7 point scale. Finally, athletes appeared to score the highest on the engagement scales as all means were in the upper 4s of the 5 point scale. In brief, athletes self-report of their mental skills and engagement were all positive. Table 1 Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Coefficients for All Subscales Subscale

Mean

SD



Vigor Dedication Enthusiasm Confidence Self-talk motivation Self-talk cognitive IM cognitive G IM cognitive SP IM motivation GM IM motivation GA IM motivation GS Cope adversity Peaking pressure Goal setting Concentration Freedom worry Confidence Coachability

4.55 4.86 4.73 4.75 3.20 3.14 5.13 4.95 5.81 4.86 4.72 1.98 2.36 1.80 2.11 1.79 2.48 2.55

0.52 0.32 0.40 0.31 0.88 0.80 0.92 0.88 0.73 0.81 1.30 0.53 0.51 0.72 0.54 0.65 0.47 0.44

.89 .91 .83 .68 .88 .91 .76 .75 .59 .77 .80 .70 .71 .82 .72 .72 .76 .67

Note: IM = imagery, G = general, SP = specific, GM = general mastery, GA = general arousal, GS = general specific.


Correlations and Multiple Regressions Table 2 contains the correlations and Table 3 contains results from the multiple regression analyses. Variance inflation factors (VIF: 1.12–1.61) and tolerance figures (.62–.89) were examined and both indicated a lack of multicollinearity. To maintain the most minimally reasonable subject to variable ratio (5–1) we entered total imagery, self-talk, and coping skills scores as 3 separate blocks. We predicted 50% of the variance, (F (3, 10) = 3.36, p < .063)1 with coping skills having the only significant standardized beta weight (β = .66, p < .04) indicating, relative to self-talk and imagery, the broader conceptualized athlete mental coping skills were more important predictors of engagement. Given the small sample, a post hoc power calculation using the above results (N = 14, p = .063, R2 = .50, & 3 predictors) indicated reasonable power of .779 (Soper, 2013).

Discussion The primary purpose of our study was to examine athlete’s mental skills and to determine if elite athletes with disabilities mental skills predicted engagement. We believe the current study is one of the first to provide a comprehensive examination of elite level Paralympic athlete’s mental skills. We also add to the knowledge base on mental skills for elite level disability sport athletes by finding that mental skill use was positively related to engagement. However, before discussing these findings we briefly discuss the descriptive findings to provide a context for subsequent results. In absolute terms, athletes tended to be above neutral on all mental skills. Given the plethora of scales and small N we next provide a subjective commentary on the mean scores based on a visual (versus statistical) appraisal of the means. Levels of engagement appeared similar although vigor was slightly lower than the other 3 subscales. Vigor can reasonably be viewed as having more of a physiological component (i.e., high energy and low fatigue) compared with the other 3 subscales. Hence, the slightly lower mean may reflect the physical tiredness that results from daily training. Self-talk subscales were comparable. Both imagery cognitive subscales and imagery motivation subscales were similar to each other, but both cognitive imagery scales were slightly higher than the two motivation imagery scales. This pattern, while very preliminary and tentative suggests that athletes might lean a bit more toward using imagery for cognitive reasons. Compared with engagement, imagery, and self-talk, the various coping skills subscale means indicated slightly more heterogeneity. Confidence, coachability, and peaking under pressure were all above 2.36 on a 0–3 scale. In contrast, coping with adversity and goal setting were both under 2. These results suggest that athletes might not be taking advantage of some of the benefits of goal setting to the degree that they might. In brief, our major hypothesis that athletes would report moderate to strong mental skills was supported based on the descriptive data. Our second major hypothesis, that mental skills would predict engagement, was also supported as we accounted for 50% of the variance in engagement. It should be noted that the small subject to variable ratio in the multiple regression analyses 1Footnote: Given the exploratory nature of our study we selected our p level at .10 and emphasize effect size (Cohen, 1994).

260

.41

.52

.23

.23

.52

.78

-.06

.71

.18

.76

.85

7. IM cognitive G

8 IM cognitive S

9. IM M GA

10. IM M GS

11. Coping adversity

12. Peaking pressure

13. Goal setting

14. Concentration

15. Freedom worry

16. Confidence

17. Coachability

.53

.40

.40

.34

.02

.22

.01

.00

-.36

.04

.11

-.35

-.05

.10

.70

-

2

.77

.56

.43

.61

.09

.37

.36

.18

-.24

.20

.42

-.17

-.17

.31

-

3

.53

.69

-.05

.63

-.06

.67

.38

.41

.43

.40

.04

.06

-.02

-

4

-.19

-.06

.16

-.20

-.13

-.30

-.27

.06

.28

.08

-.06

.79

-

5

-.13

-.02

.21

-.15

.05

-.15

-.20

-.23

.26

.10

-.05

-

6

.27

.45

-.31

.62

.35

.20

.48

.19

.03

.72

-

7

.38

.64

-.31

.75

.33

.43

.52

.20

.57

-

8

.50

.53

-.04

.38

-.19

.56

.31

.43

-

9

.17

.25

-.04

.38

-.13

.39

.35

-

10

.16

.00

-.06

.32

-.51

.15

-

11

.31

.38

-.01

.62

.14

-

12

.75

.67

.06

.71

-

13

.07

.31

-.37

-

14

.70

.81

-

15

.30

-

16

Note: Correlations > .56 are significant at p < .05. M = motivation, C = cognitive, IM = imagery, G = general, S = specific, GA = general arousal, GS = general specific.

-.13

.60

4. Confidence

-.17

.66

3. Enthusiasm

5. Self-talk M

.51

2. Dedication

6. Self-talk C

-

1. Vigor

1

Table 2 Correlations Among All Variables


Table 3 Standard Multiple Regression Results Predicting Engagement Variable Imagery Self-talk Coping skills

B

SE B



t

p

-.01 .00 .72

.12 .09 .28

-.02 -.00 .72

-.07 -.01 2.54

.94 .99 .03

likely inflated the R2 value. The effect size derived from accounting for 50% of the variance is 1.0 using Cohen’s f2 which is considered large or very meaningful. Another way of thinking about this result is that mental skills accounted for half the variance in engagement leaving another 50% that might be attributed to a plethora of antecedents such as personality (e.g., optimism), team cohesion, motivational climate, family and financial support, etc. Although we explained half the variance in engagement as a function of athlete’s coping skills it is also illuminating to comment on what we did not find. Based on the simple correlations the two forms of self-talk and the five forms of imagery were unrelated to any of the four forms of engagement or total engagement. An examination of the correlations among the seven types of athletic coping skills assessed also provided insight into the constructs that might be most important in promoting engagement. For instance, coping with adversity, goal setting, and freedom from worry were all unrelated to the four aspects of engagement. In contrast, there was a pattern of results indicating four athletic coping skills (i.e., peaking under pressure, concentration, confidence, and coachability) were related to either two or three forms of engagement. The most striking pattern of results showed that peaking under pressure, concentration, confidence, and coachability were all strongly correlated (r = .71 or higher) with vigor. In contrast, all four coping skills were unrelated to another form of engagement: dedication. It should be noted that some of the item content of the ACSI-28 confidence and achievement motivation subscale overlaps with some of the item content of the confidence subscale from the AEQ. As a result the correlation between these two constructs (r = .69) may reflect the scales similarities. These results tentatively suggest that the value of promoting coping skills such as concentration and confidence may have benefits beyond performance enhancement and lead to greater engagement (i.e., enthusiasm and vigor).

Conclusions and Limitations The current findings extend the sport psychology and disability sport literature on mental skills by providing evidence that elite level Paralympians use many common mental skills and those mental skills may promote engagement in wheelchair rugby. An obvious limitation of examining such an elite level athlete is that the sample size was quite small and hence generalizability is clearly constrained and the results should be considered sample specific. In addition, the minimal variable to subject ratio likely resulted in parameter inflation. It is also important to recognize that we cannot claim that superior coping skills led to greater engagement given the correlational nature of our study. However, as expressed earlier it is plausible that


strong coping skills help athletes perform better, manage stress more effectively, and in general enhance the sport experience leading to stronger engagement.

References Campbell, E., & Jones, G. (2002). Cognitive appraisal of sources of stress experienced by elite male wheelchair basketball players. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 19, 100–108. Campbell, E., & Jones, G. (2002). Sources of stress experienced by elite male wheelchair basketball players. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 19, 82–99. Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round, p