Investigation of the mental training levels of individual and team athletes in terms of some variables

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether the mental training levels of individual and team athletes diverge in terms of variables such as age, gender, undergraduate years, and educational status. In this study, relational screening survey and descriptive screening survey models, which are quantitative research methods, were used. A total of 700 athletes, including 358 women (age: 22.48 ± 3.20 years) and 342 men (age: 22.36 ± 3.27 years), who do individual and team sports between the ages of 18-28), participated in the study voluntarily. Personal information form and "The Sport Mental Training Questionnaire- SMTQ" adapted to Turkish by Yarayan and İlhan (2018) were applied to the participants as a data collection tool. SPSS 25 statistical package program was used for the analysis of the data. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, and one-way analysis of variance ANOVA tests were used in the analysis and interpretation of the obtained data. Tukey test was performed as a complementary post-hoc analysis to determine the differences after the Anova test. According to the results of the statistical analysis, it was determined that the interpersonal skill scores of those who do team sports are higher than those who do individual sports. It was found that the mental performance and mental basic skills scores of male athletes were higher than the females, while the interpersonal skills and self-talk scores of females were higher than males. A statistically significant level difference was found in the mental training scores of the athletes according to the variables of age, active sports age, educational status, and being a national athlete (p<0.05).