Investigation of mental endurance and cognitive flexibility of individual and team athletes

This thesis aimed to examine the mental resilience and cognitive flexibility levels of individual and team athletes actively participating in individual and team sports disciplines in the province of Mardin, Turkey. A total of 249 athletes, consisting of 117 female (age: 24.50±8.46 years, height: 171.21±8.74 cm, weight: 65.94±12.47 kg) and 132 male (age: 24.50±8.46 years, height: 171.21±8.74 cm, weight: 65.94±12.47 kg) athletes actively involved in individual and team sports disciplines such as karate, taekwondo, judo, handball, volleyball, and basketball in the province of Mardin, participated in the study. In order to assess the participants' levels of mental resilience and cognitive flexibility, a personal information form developed by the researcher, along with the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS) and the Athlete Mental Resilience Scale (AMRS), were employed. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 software program. The normality of the data was tested through the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. In the data analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test was used for analyzing binary variables, while the Kruskal-Wallis H test was applied for variables with more than two groups. To identify the source of the observed differences, the post hoc test of Tamhane's T2 was utilized. Furthermore, Spearman correlation analysis was employed to investigate the relationship between participants' scores on the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS) and the Athlete Mental Resilience Scale (AMRS). No statistically significant differences were found in the participants' scores on the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS) and the Athlete Mental Resilience Scale (AMRS) based on gender, education level, sports discipline, and weekly training frequency (p>0.05). However, there were significant differences detected in the self-confidence sub-dimension of AMRS based on the variable of years in sports, in the awareness sub-dimension of CFS based on the variable of sports injury status, and in the commitment sub-dimension of AMRS based on the variable of sports injury status (p<0.05). Furthermore, when examining the relationship between the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS) and the Athlete Mental Resilience Scale (AMRS) among participants, statistically significant differences were found in the awareness sub-dimension with the willingness sub-dimension, the awareness sub-dimension with the self-efficacy sub-dimension, the awareness sub-dimension with the commitment sub-dimension, and the awareness sub-dimension with the control sub-dimension (p<0.05). Significant differences were also observed in the willingness sub-dimension with the self-efficacy sub-dimension, the willingness sub-dimension with the control sub-dimension, the self-efficacy sub-dimension with the confidence sub-dimension, the confidence sub-dimension with the commitment sub-dimension, the confidence sub-dimension with the control sub-dimension, and the commitment sub-dimension with the control sub-dimension (p<0.05). According to the results obtained, it can be said that the years in sports and sports injury status have an impact on athletes' levels of mental resilience and cognitive flexibility.