Investigation of mental toughness and cognitive flexibility levels of elite female and male ice hockey players

In this study, it was aimed to examine the mental toughness and cognitive flexibility levels of elite female and male ice hockey players. A total of 164 athletes, 82 women and 82 men licensed in the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation Men's Super League, Men's 1st League and Women's League, participated voluntarily. Information form, mental toughness and cognitive flexibility scales were applied to the athletes. SPSS "25.0" program was used for the analysis of the obtained data. Kolmogorov Smirnow test for the compatibility of the variables with the normal distribution, the Mann-Whitney U test for comparisons between two groups and the Kruskal-Wallis test for comparisons between three groups were used. The relationship between mental toughness and cognitive flexibility levels in sports was examined by Spearman correlation coefficient (p<0,05). Significant differences were found between the elite level female and male ice hockey players in the Analysis of the Scale of Mental Resilience in Sports and the Scale of Cognitive Flexibility (p<0,05). When the research findings were examined, statistically significant differences were found in mental toughness and cognitive flexibility levels with gender and increasing age. According to gender and education level variable; Men's mental toughness, trust, commitment and control sub-dimension scores were higher than women. Mental toughness commitment sub-dimension scores of female athletes were higher than male athletes, and control sub-dimension scores of male athletes were higher than female athletes, according to the year of starting ice hockey. Mental toughness, confidence and control sub-dimension scores of male athletes were higher than female athletes according to the rink position. In cases where ice hockey athletes cope with problems, the mental toughness confidence sub-dimension score was higher than female athletes. Cognitive flexibility scores were higher than male athletes. In the same direction, a highly significant relationship was detected between the mental toughness and cognitive flexibility levels of ice hockey athletes in sports. As a result, the analyzes show that there is an interaction between mental toughness and cognitive flexibility and that they are positively related to each other. It has been observed that cognitive flexibility also increases depending on the increase in mental resilience, and it differs depending on age, gender, educational status, and year of doing sports.