The relationship between mental toughness and in sport imagery skills ln volleyball athletes

Aim: The study aims to investigate the relationship between mental toughness and sport imagery skills in volleyball athletes.Material and Method: A total of 190 athletes, including 105 males and 85 females competing in the volleyball premier league, participated in the study. In the study, "Personal Information Form", the "Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ)", which was developed by Sheard et al. (2009), and its Turkish reliability and validity was studied by Altıntaş and Bayar-Koruç (2016), and the "Sports Imagery Questionnaire", developed by Hall et al. (1998) and adapted into Turkish by Vurgun (2010) were used as data collection instruments. In the data analysis, the Mann-Whitney-U test for binary groups, and the Kruskal-Wallis test for three or more groups, as well as, descriptive analysis, arithmetic mean, percentage, and frequency tables were used. In addition, the Spearman Correlation test was used to determine whether there is a significant relationship between independent and dependent variables and sub-scales. Finally, a simple linear regression test using the Bootstrap method was used to determine the extent that the independent variable explains the dependent variable.Results: According to the analysis results, the overall total score of the mental toughness of athletes does not differ according to gender, educational status, team position, and years in sports, but differs according to age and the number of days allocated to training. It was found that the overall scores of sports imagery did not differ according to gender, educational status, age, years in sports, and team position, but differed according to the number of days allocated to training. It was found that the overall total mental toughness levels of athletes were above the average, and their level of sports imagery was significantly higher than the midpoint.Conclusion: In the light of the results obtained, a positive, weak, and significant relationship was found between the mental toughness questionnaire and the overall total score of the sports imagery questionnaire.Keywords: Volleyball, Mental Toughness, Imagery, Sport