Goal Setting In Sport

1.0 INTRODUCTION An essential element to sport is competition. When competition or social comparison comes into play, competition becomes a motivational tool. Since competition is a part of sports, performance can be affected along with the goals that have been set by the competitor. Competition between individuals with goal setting can result in higher levels of performance. Therefore, when assessing the effects of goal setting in sport, competition plays a big role in the outcome. Locke and Latham (1985) suggested that competition can be seen as a form of goal setting, which was due to two reasons; (1) the goal is the performance of another person or persons, and (2) the goal is dynamic rather than static since it changes due to other competitor’s

A goal is a target, or a specific standard or an accomplishment that a person strives to attain (Vealey, 2007). Goal setting is one of the most commonly used and most effective performance enhancing strategies in psychology (Burton et al., 2001; Burton et al., 1998). Goals are also a psychological and motivational skill that can be found in sport. Goal setting effectiveness is defined as the perceived effectiveness that a given goal will have in motivating or improving performance for an individual while goal setting frequency is defined as the perceived amount of times that goal-setting is used during a competition or event. Goal setting is a psychological skill that has been proven to be a helpful skill in improving a task. It is a technique that can motivate, increase confidence, and increase the skills of an athlete in competitive sports. The goal setting frequency and goal setting effectiveness subscales of the Collegiate Goal Setting in Sport Questionnaire were used to assess goal setting practices of 30 athletes in the Faculty Of Sport Science And Recreation, UiTM Shah

This study is significant because the perceived effectiveness and frequency of goal setting of intercollegiate multi-event athletes are rarely examined.

Method
Participants.
There were 61 total multi-event athletes who opened a link to the current survey and 44 (72%) who completed it (note: due to the online survey method, it is unknown how many potential participants actually received the survey link). Twenty-four (54.5%) of the participants were male and 20 (45.5 %) participants were female. Of the 44 participants, 1 (2.3%) was a freshman, 12 (27.3%) were sophomores, 14 (31.8%) were juniors, 16 (36.4%) were seniors, and 1 (2.3%) was a graduate student. The competitive athletic divisions represented were: 6 (13.6%) junior college, 1 (2.3%) NAIA, 17 (38.6%) NCAA Division I, 14 (31.8%) NCAA Division II, and 6 (13.6%) NCAA Division III. The participant’s ethnicities that were reported were: 5 (11.4%) Black/African American, 1 (2.3%) Hispanic, 36 (81.8%) White/Caucasian, 1 (2.3%) Scandinavian, and 1 (2.3%) declined to respond. Athletes ranged in age from 18 to 25, with a mean age of 20.80 years. Some type of goal setting was done in the multi (M = 2.73), and there was a mean of 2.80 years of experience in goal setting (years of experience