Investigation of the relationship between imagination and anxiety in elite karate

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the image usage and trait anxiety levels of elite karate athletes. In this research, relational screening model was used to determine the current situation. The population of the study has created by elite karate athletes who participated in the 2018-2019 season Senior Turkey Karate Championship. The sample group of the study consisted of 120 [n (male) = 61, n (female) = 59] athletes determined by random sampling method among these athletes. In the research, "Imagination Inventory in Sports" and "Continuous Anxiety Inventory" were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, frequency and percentage distributions describing the personal characteristics of the participants were extracted, arithmetic means and standard deviations of the responses to the scales were calculated and distributions related to imagination and trait anxiety levels were determined. Independent variables related to sub-problems; Imagery and trait anxiety levels were tested with parametric tests, t-test for paired comparisons, One-Way ANOVA for three or more cluster comparisons, and Tukey test was used to determine which groups caused significant differences. In order to determine the relationship between imagery and trait anxiety levels of the participants, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation (r) Coefficient technique was used. Significance level was taken as 0.05. According to our research results; there was no significant difference between elite karate athletes' gender, sport age, education status and father education status variables' imagery inventory sub-dimensions and trait anxiety levels. However, there was a significant difference in total anxiety scores and "Motivational Special Imagination" subscale (p <0.05). Depending on the mother education level, significant differences were found in the "Motivational General-Stimulation" and "Motivational General-Mastery" sub-dimensions of the imagery inventory in sports (p <0.05). As a result of the correlation analysis between the total scores of trait anxiety inventory and the sub-dimensions of imagery inventory in sports related to national sportsman level of the participants; In the Cognitive Imagination" subscale, a low level of statistically significant relationship was found (p <0.05). In addition, as a result of the correlation analysis performed on the sub-dimensions of the national sportsman level variable and the imagery inventory in sports, a low level of statistically significant relationship was found in the "Cognitive Imagination" sub-dimension (p <0.05). As a result, it was found that there was a low level of relationship between elite karate athletes' imaginary usage and total scores of trait anxiety in the "Cognitive Imagery" subscale (p <0.05).