The effect of mental training methods on technical skill performance of 15-18 age basketball players

The aim of this research is to understand whether mental training practices to be carried out for 8 weeks in basketball players aged 15-18 will cause any changes on basketball technical skills. In addition, another aim is to reveal whether the trainings participated in make any difference on the skills of the athletes. This study was carried out by creating a research design with experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test. The research group of this study consists of the athletes of an amateur sports club competing in the province of Rize. A total of 19 athletes (Xage=16.56+/-0.80; experimental group:10, control group:9) in the 15-18 age range were included in the study. All athletes were first included in a basketball skill track and their basketball skills were evaluated out of 100. Evaluations were made by 3 basketball coaches and 2 faculty members who teach basketball at the faculties of sports sciences. After the pre-test, all the participants in the experimental and control groups participated in normal basketball training for 8 weeks, and the athletes in the experimental group participated in a mental training program that would last for 1 hour after physical training. After 8 weeks, all participants once again participated in the basketball skill track they entered at the beginning (pre-test) and were evaluated in the same way. Before starting the analysis, whether the scores of the experimental and control groups from the pre-test and post-test showed normal distribution were tested with Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro Wilk tests. In order to compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control groups according to the normal distribution results, t-test or Mann Whitney-U test was used in independent groups. In addition, t-test or Wilcoxon z-test was used in dependent groups to understand the change in the pretest-posttest mean scores of the experimental and control groups. Although there was no difference in the pre-tests as a result of the analyzes, there were significant differences in the post-tests in favor of the experimental group in the reverse, chest pass, hand switching skills from the front, back and between the legs, and the total course score. In addition, significant improvements were detected in the experimental and control groups in all other skills, except for the track finishing time.