About:
Boyz N Tha Hood Badminton Squad
Charlotte Higgins Student ID# 2259775
Isabella Henderson Student ID# 2259195
Issac Woolston Student ID# 2271815
Jeff Fode Student ID# 2262275
Luke Warburton Student ID#2262818
Isabella Henderson Student ID# 2259195
Issac Woolston Student ID# 2271815
Jeff Fode Student ID# 2262275
Luke Warburton Student ID#2262818
IntRODUCTION
An athlete’s performance is influenced by a number of internal and external factors including motivation, confidence, concentration and environment. There is a huge debate amongst motivational psychologists over whether an internal approach, as trait approach theorists would follow, or external factors, as situational theorists would argue, contribute most to an athlete's performance. However, our report will consider an interactional approach by applying performance-based concepts, the self-efficacy theory, which touches on an athlete's perception of their ability as a driving influence, and attentional (inattentional) focus, which examines an athlete's attention (or inattention). The data will be collected using a TA methodology to examine the internal thoughts and external actions of participants over three sessions, with the focus sport of badminton. Therefore, the purpose of our investigation is to compare and apply the chosen performance-based concepts using the TA data provided by participants. Sub-categories of ability, participants divided into two conditions, experts and novices, will be considered and compared.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Self-efficacy (SE) is defined by an athlete's self-perception of their own ability to perform a task successfully. The SE theory as developed by Bandura (1977) is a situation-specific motivational theory that addresses the relationship between performance, behaviour and persistence. SE according to Bandura (1977) has six key sources, performance accomplishments, modelling, verbal persuasion, imaginal experiences, physiological states and emotional states (refer to figure 1).
Musculus et al (2018), conducted a study on developing soccer players and found associations with SE and performance, where the higher the athlete’s perceptions of their ability, the stronger their performance. A further study on high school students completed by Gao (2008), comparing the SE theory and expectancy value model, found that those that were able to use components of the SE model such as verbal persuasion and calming their physiological states had higher levels of SE and overall had a higher performance. There was limited literature on how the SE theory is applied directly to the sport of badminton however, there were several studies using components of SE to assess the performance of badminton players. One study by Hidayat et al (2023) focused on two sources of the SE theory, mental imagery (MI) and self-talk (ST). The results suggested patterns that MI and ST increased the confidence levels of the athletes.
The second focus concept of the study will be attentional (inattentional) focus. Attention is defined as an athlete's ability to apply deliberate effort to the most important aspects of gameplay (Weinburg, 2019). The important sections of attentional (inattentional) focus include the relevant environmental cues, selective attention, maintaining attentional focus, situational awareness and the shifting of attentional focus. By focusing on only relevant environmental cues selective attention can be achieved, the elimination of irrelevant cues allows an athlete to efficiently perform the task at hand (Weinberg, 2020). Research has indicated that the average athlete can maintain attentional focus for five seconds approximately, though cognitive training such as meditation and mindfulness can strengthen concentration abilities. It is crucial for athletes to understand what is going on around them, this concept is referred to as situational awareness (Weinberg, 2020). The benefits of attentional focus have been explored through various scopes including basketball free throws (Zachry, 2015), gymnastics (Lawrence, 2011), golf chipping (Bell, 2009), and volleyball (Wulf, 2002). There has been research into how attentional focus can benefit serving, investigated using a short shot task (Abedanzadeh, 2022). Though there is limited research about the influence attentional focus has on badminton performance in a game situation, this gap in literature acts as the framework for this investigation.
The think-aloud (TA) method asks participants to verbalize their thoughts while performing a task (Eccles, 2017). This method allows researchers to capture various levels of verbalization, level one consists of thoughts that do not require cognitive processing, for example encouraging teammates. Whereas level two consists of verbalizations that require little cognitive processing, this may be in the form of describing where you will serve the shuttlecock on the court (Samson, 2015). Level three is thought to directly represent the person's attentional thought processes, linking information from long-term memory leading to the ability to TA (Whitehead, 2022). This technique was initially proposed by cognitive psychologists including Haynes (1982) that highlighted there may be a significant relationship between the verbalization of thoughts and performance (Samson, 2015). Previous research by Nisbett and Wilson (1977) proposed that people can accurately report their thinking but only within specific elicitation conditions (Eccles, 2017). TA has been utilised within a variety of sport psychology investigations including testing gender differences of competitive tennis players (Swettenham, 2020), assessing coping and stress strategies (Nicholls, 2008) and examining distance runner’s thought processing (Sampson, 2015). The gap in current literature that has been identified and therefore fueled this investigation brings self-efficiency, attentional focus and TA together to explore to what extent performance levels are influenced by self-efficiency and attentional focus, using the TA as the research method.
Musculus et al (2018), conducted a study on developing soccer players and found associations with SE and performance, where the higher the athlete’s perceptions of their ability, the stronger their performance. A further study on high school students completed by Gao (2008), comparing the SE theory and expectancy value model, found that those that were able to use components of the SE model such as verbal persuasion and calming their physiological states had higher levels of SE and overall had a higher performance. There was limited literature on how the SE theory is applied directly to the sport of badminton however, there were several studies using components of SE to assess the performance of badminton players. One study by Hidayat et al (2023) focused on two sources of the SE theory, mental imagery (MI) and self-talk (ST). The results suggested patterns that MI and ST increased the confidence levels of the athletes.
The second focus concept of the study will be attentional (inattentional) focus. Attention is defined as an athlete's ability to apply deliberate effort to the most important aspects of gameplay (Weinburg, 2019). The important sections of attentional (inattentional) focus include the relevant environmental cues, selective attention, maintaining attentional focus, situational awareness and the shifting of attentional focus. By focusing on only relevant environmental cues selective attention can be achieved, the elimination of irrelevant cues allows an athlete to efficiently perform the task at hand (Weinberg, 2020). Research has indicated that the average athlete can maintain attentional focus for five seconds approximately, though cognitive training such as meditation and mindfulness can strengthen concentration abilities. It is crucial for athletes to understand what is going on around them, this concept is referred to as situational awareness (Weinberg, 2020). The benefits of attentional focus have been explored through various scopes including basketball free throws (Zachry, 2015), gymnastics (Lawrence, 2011), golf chipping (Bell, 2009), and volleyball (Wulf, 2002). There has been research into how attentional focus can benefit serving, investigated using a short shot task (Abedanzadeh, 2022). Though there is limited research about the influence attentional focus has on badminton performance in a game situation, this gap in literature acts as the framework for this investigation.
The think-aloud (TA) method asks participants to verbalize their thoughts while performing a task (Eccles, 2017). This method allows researchers to capture various levels of verbalization, level one consists of thoughts that do not require cognitive processing, for example encouraging teammates. Whereas level two consists of verbalizations that require little cognitive processing, this may be in the form of describing where you will serve the shuttlecock on the court (Samson, 2015). Level three is thought to directly represent the person's attentional thought processes, linking information from long-term memory leading to the ability to TA (Whitehead, 2022). This technique was initially proposed by cognitive psychologists including Haynes (1982) that highlighted there may be a significant relationship between the verbalization of thoughts and performance (Samson, 2015). Previous research by Nisbett and Wilson (1977) proposed that people can accurately report their thinking but only within specific elicitation conditions (Eccles, 2017). TA has been utilised within a variety of sport psychology investigations including testing gender differences of competitive tennis players (Swettenham, 2020), assessing coping and stress strategies (Nicholls, 2008) and examining distance runner’s thought processing (Sampson, 2015). The gap in current literature that has been identified and therefore fueled this investigation brings self-efficiency, attentional focus and TA together to explore to what extent performance levels are influenced by self-efficiency and attentional focus, using the TA as the research method.
