Sports Psychology (NSQF Physical Education)
Sports Psychology tests how psychological factors affect performance and how a coach can intervene - motivation, arousal, anxiety, confidence, concentration, goal setting, cohesion and the stages of learning. Answers score best when a named theory is applied to a named situation.
Core concepts
- Motivation: intrinsic (enjoyment, mastery) versus extrinsic (medals, money); heavy extrinsic reward can undermine intrinsic motivation.
- Arousal: drive theory predicts a linear rise in performance with arousal; the inverted-U (Yerkes–Dodson) predicts an optimum with over-arousal causing choking; IZOF holds that the optimum differs by athlete.
- Anxiety: trait (stable personality) versus state (situational); cognitive (worry) versus somatic (raised HR, sweating).
- Self-efficacy (Bandura): mastery experiences, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, physiological/affective states.
- Goal setting: SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound; process, performance and outcome goals.
- Learning stages (Fitts & Posner): cognitive (many errors, needs demonstration), associative (refining), autonomous (automatic, attention free).
Worked example
A basketball player misses free throws in the last minute. The coach replaces "don't miss" with a process goal: "before each free throw take two dribbles, breathe out and focus on the front rim - 20 trials after every session for two weeks." This is specific, measurable and time-bound, and shifts attention from outcome (score) to a controllable process. Adding imagery of a successful shot and pre-throw breathing also lowers somatic anxiety.
Traps
Labelling trait anxiety as state; saying the inverted-U means more arousal is always better; writing goals such as "do better" that cannot be measured; confusing self-confidence with self-efficacy; naming a theory without linking it to the situation.