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Females with a Disability and Participation in Sport

Tracy TaylorUTS Business School

University of Technology, Sydney.

Simon DarcyUTS Business School

University of Technology, Sydney.

Dan LockGriffith University

Abstract

It is well proven that a physically active lifestyle has associated health and social benefitsand is linked to a sense of wellbeing. It is also acknowledged that not all groups in societyhave the same opportunities to engage in sport and physical activity, and that participationcan be gendered. This paper presents a study of the sport participation of females with adisability within Australia to better understand some of the key drivers to enhance levels ofinvolvement in sport and thus facilitate a healthier lifestyle. The research design employed anonline questionnaire available for completion in nine formats depending on the disabilitytype and the support needs of individuals responding. Questions sought both quantitativeresponses about levels of participation and qualitative responses about the constraintsexperienced and benefits received from participation. Some 266 women with disabilityresponded, of which 86% indicated that they were active sport and recreation participants.The results show higher levels of participation by women who were independent or had lowerto moderate support needs compared with women with high to very high support needs whohad substantially lower levels of participation. Yet, when examining the constraints that thesegroups faced, rather than being intrapersonal in nature (e.g. the individual's impairment)there were a series of interpersonal (e.g. no one to participate with) and structural (e.g.government support) issues that constrain participation. The constraints were then examinedfrom the perspective of those outside of sporting context those within the sporting context.For those who did participate, the benefits were identified as a sense of achievement togetherwith improving health. The other key benefits were overwhelmingly social in nature,including belonging, companionship and having time with friends. The implications for sportand active recreation involvement generally and for sport participation in particular arediscussed.

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Females with a Disability and Participation in Sport

Escalating levels of childhood obesity, dramatic increases in sedentary behaviour across allage groups and alarmingly decreasing physical activity levels of young people, havegenerated much recent discussion about the associated community ‘costs’ of such lifestyles.Hence, there is a growing public awareness of the importance of providing betteropportunities for people to lead more active and healthier lives. However, some populationgroups, such as people with disability, face greater challenges than others when it comes tomaintaining good health and engaging in physical activity. For many people with disability,secondary health conditions include osteoporosis, reduced muscle strength and endurance,reduced aerobic fitness, increased spasticity, being overweight, hypertension and depression(Buffart et al., 2009). Participation in physical activity and sport can have positive effects onsecondary conditions, and on functional independence, social integration, citizenship andquality of life (Durstine et al., 2000; Heath & Fentem, 1997). Involvement in physical activityand sport is a way to afford individuals with disability an opportunity to develop andmaintain physical and mental health and general well-being.

In reporting on research that indicates that people with disabilities who are physicallyactive accrue a range of benefits from their participation, Groff et al. (2009, p.319) note thatsuch individuals have been found to: (i) be better adjusted and more satisfied with life, (ii)report having fewer days of pain, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, and improved vitality,(iii) substantially increase their life expectancy, (iv) be stronger and have more stamina, (v)have improved cardiovascular health and fitness, (vi) experience fewer and less severesecondary health conditions, and (vii) develop a positive athletic identity. With the evidenceoverwhelmingly supporting the improved health, psychosocial and citizenship benefits ofparticipation why are people with disability participating less than the general population? Asstated in the introduction, people with disability, and women with disability in particular,identified a series of barriers to participation that deny them the benefits that they could bereceiving.

The aim of the research presented in this paper is to explore the main barriers to andfacilitators of physical activity for women with disabilities. The paper presents the resultsfrom a study on females and sport participation, as commissioned by the AustralianParalympic Committee. The data are a sub-set of a broader study of disability andparticipation in sport commissioned by the Australian Sports Commission (Darcy, Taylor,Murphy, & Lock, 2011).

People with a Disability and Participation

Current sport and active recreation provision for people with disability reflect the manyhistorical and cultural contexts and issues faced by disabled populations. It has been arguedthat participation is a complex interaction between numerous factors and obviously somepopulation groups have greater challenges and less opportunity than others. Within mostcountries, people with disability participate at a significantly lower rate in sport and activerecreation than the rest of the population (Garber, Allsworth, Marcus, Hesser, & Lapane,2008; Murphy & Carbone, 2008; Vanner, Block, Christodoulou, Horowitz, & Krupp, 2008).

Crawford and Godbey (1987) identified three categories of potential constraints withrespect to leisure, and we suggest these could also apply to sport and physical activity. Theseare:

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1. Intrapersonal — lack of self-confidence, lack of encouragement or lack of informationabout opportunities for leisure that affect preference or lead to a lack of interest in aparticular type of leisure activity.

2. Interpersonal — associated with other individuals, including lack of leisure partnersor lack of social interaction skills. Our

3. Structural — those that exist between individual preferences and participation in aleisure activity, including lack of finances, lack of transportation, limited abilities,lack of time or architectural barriers.

The leisure constraints experienced by people with disability vary for individualsdepending on their impairment, level of independence, race and gender (Bedini, 2000;Bedini & Henderson, 1994; Dattilo, Caldwell, Lee, & Kleiber, 1998; Fitzgerald, Jobling, &Kirk, 2003; Henderson & Bedini, 1997; Henderson, Bedini, Hecht, & Schuler, 1995; Hunter,1984; Oliva & Simonsen, 2000; Perry, 1994; Rimmer, Rubin, & Braddock, 2000; Smears,1996; Wade & Hoover, 1984). The combination of these "double whammies" (Henderson &Bedini, 1997), increase the complexity of understanding the social phenomena and how toprovide the appropriate/best social responses to facilitate sport and active recreationparticipation. Yet, surprisingly few studies have examined the leisure constraints of womenwith disability participation in sport and active recreation. Table 1 provides a usefulcategorisation barriers and constraints.

Table 1: Barriers to sport, recreation and leisure participation for people with disability

Category Barrier and descriptionIntrinsic(intrapersonal)

Lack of knowledge — about leisure programs, facilities, resources andother information required in order to make informed choices.Social ineffectiveness — some people with disability may have ineffectivesocial skills.Health-related issues — people with disability, like the rest of thecommunity, may have health-related issues that have an impact on theirparticipation.Physical and psychological dependency — some people with disabilityhave physical dependency due to their impairments, while others may havea ‘learned’ psychological dependency (for example, attendant assistance).Skill/challenge gaps — as conceptualised in ‘flow’ theory, skill/challengegaps are a major consideration in choice of leisure activity.

Environmental(structural)

Attitudinal barriers — a variety of attitudinal barriers may be faced bypeople with disability. These include negative behaviour towardsindividuals (for example, exclusion, verbal abuse, violence), paternalism(for example, treated as childlike, assumed decision-making roles) andapathy (for example, ignoring existence and, hence, exclusion).Architectural barriers — to the built environment. Effective legislation,design, planning and construction can help to overcome these barriers andis discussed in greater detail later.Rules and regulations barriers — in some situations, rules and legislationhave been enacted that deliberately discriminate against people withdisability (for example, international air carrying regulations).Transport barriers — for people with higher support needs, there is a lackof suitable and affordable accessible transport.Economic barriers — people with disability experience far higher rates ofunemployment (from the average to 99%, depending on a range of factors)and, therefore, are economically disadvantaged. Further, many impairments

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have additional costs that must be met by the individual (for example,equipment, wheelchairs, personal care consumables).Barriers of omission — this includes all those facilities, programs, policiesand procedures that do not incorporate inclusive practices for people withdisability (for example, modified rules).

Communication(interpersonal)barriers

Communication — cannot be thought of as primarily intrinsic or extrinsic,as communication involves reciprocal interaction between the individualand her/his social environments. Therefore, barriers arising can occurthrough the sender, the receiver or both. Further, people with disability mayhave multiple disabilities that affect communication (for example, speech,hearing, sight, cognitive, brain damage).

Source: Smith et al. (Smith, Austin, Kennedy, Lee, & Hutchison, 2005)

Yet, as Smears (1996) noted in response to Henderson et al. (1995), much of this bodyof work has not been based on a disability perspective but a medical approach or on theresearcher’s theoretical position. This work has made assumptions about disability thatfocused on the individual’s loss, although the findings of much of the above researchconsistently identified structural constraints as the major constraints identified by people withdisabilities. However, critiques of constraint models suggest that grounded analysis should beconsidered to examine emergent themes from people’s experiences rather than be defined bythe researcher (Samdahl & Jekubovich 1997a; 1997b). Similarly, leisure constraints researchhas been criticised for its reliance on quantitative, survey based methodologies that focus onsocial psychological paradigms. The results of leisure constraints research could be regardedas the product of a particular kind of social science rather than as objective social scienceresearch (Jackson & Scott 1999).

With respect to the participation of women with disability in sport and activerecreation, there have been two broad bodies of literature that need to be acknowledged. Thefirst, developed from the medical and sport science literature that focuses very much onunderstanding the biological and medical responses of women with disability’s sportperformance. This body of work has developed in response to understanding thebiomechanical and physiological implications of women with disability's participation (e.g.Guthrie & Castelnuovo, 2001; Harrison, Umberson, Lin, & Cheng, 2010; Rantanen et al.,1999; Van Der Ploeg, Van Der Beek, van der Woude, & van Mechelen, 2004). This literaturehas focused on understanding and improving the physical and psychological ability of womento perform in sport. A second body of work can be framed from a social constructionistperspective that seeks to understand the broader social phenomena of women with disability'ssport and active recreation engagement. It interrogates the social, cultural, political andeconomic implications (e.g. Ashton-Shaeffer, Gibson, Holt, & Willming, 2001; DePauw &Gavron, 2005; Jordan, 2010) and includes the research on leisure constraints as they relate towomen's participation identified previously. More recently, contemporary approaches todisability that can be conceptualised around the social model of disability have beenintroduced (Oliver, 1996) to focus attention on the disabling barriers facing people withdisability and seek transformative enabling solutions to improve disability citizenship (Barnes& Mercer, 2010; Swain, Finkelstein, French, & Oliver, 2004). Contemporary manifestationsof the social model have been influenced by feminist studies (Thomas, 1999) and clearlyidentify that being a person with disability has gendered nuances within sport andrecreational settings. Gender has increasingly been included as part of studies examiningsport and recreation participation and settings (Aitchison, 2003; Devine, 2004; French &Hainsworth, 2001; Liu, 2009; Lord & Patterson, 2008; Macbeth, 2010; Patterson & Pegg,2009). Yet, most of this research has specifically looked at the participation and

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nonparticipation of women with disability, the constraints they face and the benefits theyreceive if they participate.

MethodA questionnaire survey was developed using relevant literature and items from previousresearch and comprised four sections: benefits; constraints; patterns of participation and non-participation; and demographic and psychographic profile. The online questionnaire alsoincorporated leisure/sport constraints theory, benefits research and individual and socialattitudes towards disability experienced by the respondents. Aspects of the nationalparticipation survey data (ERASS) was used to compare people with disability participationtrends with the general population (Australian Sports Commission & State and territorygovernment agencies, 2001-2009).

The online questionnaire used an electronic snowballing technique in conjunctionwith a database of 300 disability organisation contacts. The survey was self-report (orcompleted on behalf of the respondent by a family member or carer). The onlinequestionnaire generated a significant sample of fully completed responses (n=1100). One ofthe defining elements that set this questionnaire apart from previous research was that itinvolved cross disability research where the survey was available in nine separate formats.These included: Survey monkey online questionnaire compliant to section 508 of theAmericans with Disabilities Act; hard copy of the survey for those without access to theInternet; large print; easy text for blind people who use screen readers; braille for blindpeople who only use braille; easy English for people with intellectual disability who requiredthe support of an attendant to complete the questionnaire; online version of the questionnairewith embedded Auslan video clips for the Deaf and hearing impaired community ; phoneassisted completion for those who would prefer to answer via a person assisting; and onlinequestioning specifically set up for people with mental health considerations.

The subset of female respondents is presented here and analysed for genderdimensions in participation rates and the constraints faced and the benefits received fromsport and recreation involvement. Compared with Australian census data (eg. ABS 2006), theresponse profile indicates a self selection bias, which means that females that participate insport were more likely to complete the survey. This is not surprising given that people whodo not participate in sport and active recreation may not have had the predisposition tocomplete the questionnaire. The results should be read with this consideration in mind.

While the sampling method of electronic snowballing is an efficient means ofcontacting people with disability and those with access needs, limitations with respect tothose who have access to the internet and those members who regularly check theirorganisational website or their electronic or print publications are noted.

Respondent ProfileThe following results are based on a sample of 266 fully completed questionnaires.Respondents were females with a disability (average age of 31.9 years of age), 88.7% ofthese were born in Australia. As a quarter of the country’s population are born overseas(ABS, 2006) this sample is over representative of Australian born females. The largest groupof respondents characterised themselves as a person with an intellectual/cognitive disabilityat 32.3% (Table 2) with very low levels of support needs.

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Table 2: Main disability

Main disability Percent

Intellectual/ cognitive/ learning 32.3

Blind or vision 15.0

Mobility - Manual wheelchair 13.2

Mobility - No aid required 10.9

Physical - not affecting mobility 10.9

Mobility - Other mobility aids 10.2

Mobility - Power wheelchair 7.5

Total 100.0

Figure 1: Level of support needs

NB: Scale is 1=None, 5=Very high

The respondents were highly educated with 32.3% having completed at least anundergraduate diploma. Of the respondents 36.8% were engaged in paid employment. Thosewith an intellectual disability worked the least hours per week (M=14.13) while those withlimited mobility using other aids work the most (M=23.91). There is a statistically significantdifference between groups (p=0.000) indicating that those who have higher support needswork less hours per week.

Table 3 shows the correlation between disability type and level of support needs. It clearlyindicates that people in a power wheelchair report require far higher levels of support thanother disability groups and participated in the list of any group. This result is statisticallysignificantly against all groups except those with an intellectual/cognitive disability.

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Table 3: Average response for level of support needs by disability type

Main disability Mean*Std.Deviation

Mobility - Powerwheelchair

3.50 1.235

Intellectual/ cognitive/learning

3.03 .939

Mobility - Manualwheelchair

2.37 1.140

Mobility - No aid required 2.10 .860

Mobility - Other mobilityaids

2.04 .980

Blind or vision 1.95 .959

Physical - not affectingmobility

1.69 .850

Total 2.47 1.126* Support needs scale: 1=none, 5=very high

Activity CharacteristicsA sizeable proportion (85.7%) of the respondents participated in sport and recreationactivities in the 12 months preceding the survey. These are extremely active participants, themajority of which participate more than twice per week (20%) and over half of the sample(56%) participated in at least two activities. The most common activities for females wererecreational swimming (46.5%), going to the gym (18%) and ten pin bowling (8.8%). Themain activity that they engaged with is participated on average 266 minutes per week, 6 timesper week and 22 times per month.

The largest group of active participants were people with an intellectual/cognitivedisability (35.1%) while the two largest groups of non-participants were those using a powerwheelchair and those with a mobility problem without aid required (21.1% each) (Figure 3).All groups were very likely to participate in sport and recreation however, blind/visionimpaired people were much more likely to participate in sport (95% participation) whilepower wheelchair users were less likely to participate (60% participation) (Figure 3).

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Figure 2: Participation rate of disability groups

Figure 3: Disability and the frequency of participation

People who require greater amounts of support participated less in sport and thiscorrelation is statistically significant (p=0.038). As a group, people with a physical disability(not affecting mobility) participate in sport and recreation at a greater rate than other groups(Figure 3). They also have astatistically significantly higher rate of participation than those in power wheelchairs(p=0.002), those requiring other mobility aids (p=0.000) and those with acognitive/intellectual disability (p=0.039).

Respondents were asked to rate their health, fitness and participation in sport andrecreation out of 5 (Excellent). Non-participants rated their health, fitness and participation insport and recreation more poorly than participants and this result was statistically significant(3.11 vrs 2.09).

Women that identified they had a physical disability that does not affect theirmobility, on average, reported better health, fitness and participation. On individual items

60.0%

85.7% 85.2%

72.4%

82.8%

95.0% 93.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

Powerwheelchair

Manualwheelchair

Other mobilityaids

Mobility - Noaid required

Physical - notaffectingmobility

Blind or vision Intellectual/cognitive

.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

45.0%

50.0%

Less than onceper month

Once per month once per week Twice per week Three times perweek

Participation rate

Mobility - Power wheelchair

Mobility - Manual wheelchair

Mobility - Other mobility aids

Mobility - No aid required

Physical - not affecting mobility

Blind or vision

Intellectual/ cognitive/ learning

Main disability

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they believed that they were the most fit and participate in the most sport and recreation,however, blind /vision impaired respondents felt that they were healthier compared to othergroups. Females rated themselves more poorly on each item than males, however, this resultis only statistically significant for level of fitness (p=0.006) and sport participation (p=0.032)ie not fitness. These ratings were also compared by level of support needs. Not surprisingly,there was a strong negative correlation - the higher the level of support required, the lowerrespondents rated their levels of health, fitness and sports participation.

Benefits and constraints

Women with a physical disability were the most satisfied with their level of participation,followed by women with Intellectual/ cognitive/ learning. On the other hand, powerwheelchair users and those with no mobility aids indicated a desire for participating in agreater amount of sport (86% and 85% respectively). The top 10 benefits of sportparticipation are listed in table 4. A comparison with the results for males found that therewere two statistically significantly more important benefits for women in sports participation.These were ‘to lose weight’ (t=-2.507, p=0.012) and ‘Improve health or reduce the risk ofdisease’ (t=-2.765, p=0.006).

Table 4: Top 10 Benefits of sports participation

Benefit Mean*1. Achievement 4.212. Improve health or reduce the risk of

disease4.21

3. Improve muscle tone 4.134. Improve heart and lung fitness 4.115. Opportunities to socialise with others 4.106. Do something stimulating 4.097. Improve self esteem 4.088. Build up muscle strength 4.089. Enjoy company of friends 4.0510. Spend time with friends 4.04

* 1=Not at all important, 5=very important

There are several items that are statistically less important to women than men. Theseincluded: meet new people; have an adventure; encounter exciting things; and to be valuedfor my contribution. Some any other benefits identified through the open ended comments ofrespondents were:

A sense of purpose – ‘I am a member of the Australian wheelchair women’s tennis squad; so am constantly aiming to improve my ability to be

competitive at an elite level’ (Participant) Very important for my mental health. ‘In the past I've suffered from depression and

sport and active recreation has helped me off ant-depressants which I have beentaking for 14 years. Health has been so good during the last 3 years’ (Participant)

Time away from home being independent. ‘Being able to do my 'own thing'. Enjoyingthe company of other participants in the classes’ (Participant)

Increase in mobility function. ‘Also losing weight will not only aid my disability butwill also recover my heart and respiratory issues which are largely due to obesity anda sedimentary lifestyle’ (Non-participant).

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The top 10 constraints to sports participation are listed in table 5. A comparison with maleresponses did not find any statistically significantly greater constraints however there wereseveral items that were more constraining for women but not significant. The moststatistically significant include of these were: too many domestic duties; too manyresponsibilities; feelings of guilt; and poor health.

Table 5: Top 10 Constraints to sports participation

Constraint Mean*1. Lack of government support 3.162. No integrated sport and recreation programs

available2.97

3. Pricing 2.964. Lack of money 2.955. Lack of trained staff to support my

participation2.83

6. No access to facilities close to home/ work 2.827. Lack of personal income 2.828. No assessment of pwd's needs 2.789. No friends to participate with 2.7710. Scarcity of places 2.74

* 1=Not at all important, 5=very important

The constraints were compared for participants and non-participants. All of the 50items were rated as more constraining by non-participants and 31 of these are statisticallysignificantly more constraining. The highest rated aspects included: no friends to participatewith; no support to participate; lack of awareness of the benefits of sport and recreation; toomany domestic duties; lack of accessible public transport; lack of accessible toilets andchangerooms; sport and recreation not important; and, sport and recreation is ‘only for men’.

These results are reflected in the open-ended responses. Some of the responses fromactive participants were:

lack of public transport most times, particularly weekends and after hours, no on sitefacilities in the workplace.

I have a gym nearby but do not feel safe walking there and back I work full time andalready have to pay out for taxi's for that so cannot afford to pay out to attend gym aswell The friends I do have live too far away to take me and are not interested inattending with me That is why I bought a treadmill myself, but this can be boring andisolating.

I can only go swimming with a female carer and one who is confident in the water. Ican only go to the gym with a carer who knows gym work and is able to stop me fromhurting myself.

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Embarrassment due to disability and fear of not being able to participate well. Lack ofconfidence Fear of failing at the chosen activity.

Non-participants stated the following:

Live in small country town which does not really have any disabled friendly facilities.

Cannot participate as people think you might get hurt and you would not be an assetto the team.

The respondents were given the chance to suggest some strategies that would supportthem in sport participation. Most of these were around provision of subsidies, better access toinformation about the benefits of sport participation; better education of the community aboutinclusive practices, and provision of ‘accessible’ equipment and transport. There were severalcomments about the need to ensure sport providers offered encouragement and support forwomen with disabilities, and the lack of opportunities for older women and the suggestion ofa Seniors Para Games.

Conclusion

This research provides a foundation from which to gain an improved understanding of theparticipation of women with physical disabilities in recreational and sport activities. Suchinformation can assist families and service providers in planning activities that fit with theirfamily member with disability preferences and ensure active participation. The constraintsframework suggests that while people have a disability that may impact on their access toparticipation, it is not the disability that constraints the participation in sport and activerecreation but rather it is a complex interplay of structural constraints. From a policyperspective, this suggests that there are a series of strategies that could be put in place bygovernment agencies charged with disability services broadly, government sport agencies,sport organisations and sport businesses that could act to improve participation by womenwith disability. Given the opportunity to participate, these active women reportedexperiencing a combination of social and personal benefits that are important for anindividual's identity and citizenship. Governments and organisations should be encouraged todevelop strategies for sporting engagement as improved sporting engagement can be aprecursor to women with disability becoming engaged in all areas of life.

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Influence of the “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program on PhysicalFitness, Self-Esteem and Quality of Life in Youth-at-Risk

Lim BH 1, Abdul Halim Mokhtar 2, & Balbir SG3

University of Malaya

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the “Off the Street, On theBall” Midnight Football Program on physical fitness components, self-esteem and perceptionon quality of life between baseline and post-program in youth-at-risk. A total of 58 maleparticipants in the pilot project “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Programorganized by the Social Responsibility Department, Asian Football Confederation (AFC)were recruited as the subjects of this study. They were aged 14-19 years, with a mean age of16.72 (SD= 1.24) years. Instrumentations employed in this study were Yo-Yo IntermittentTest, Single Sprint Test, and Balsom Agility Test to measure aerobic endurance, speed andagility of the subjects on baseline and post-program. Two questionnaires were administered,the Influence on Quality of Life Scale (IQLS) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) tocollect perception on quality of life and self-esteem on baseline and post-program. Betweenthe baseline and post-program, all subjects were divided into eight groups followed fourweeks of soccer-specific periodized training programme and controlled by certified coachassigned to them. Results of present study revealed that all physical fitness components(aerobic endurance, speed and agility) were significant difference between baseline and post-program at p < .05. For the self-esteem, results indicated significant differences favouringthe post-program (t=-19.82, df=91, p<.05). An analysis of the individual items on the IQLSindicated that vast majority of the subjects either agreed or strongly agreed that involvementin the midnight football program positively influenced their perception on quality of life.Overall, the results of the current study lend additional support to the use of footballprogram to develop positive self-esteem and creating opportunities to experience positiveperception on quality of life. Thus, positive self-esteem and positive perception on quality oflife are significantly more likely to reduce social risk factors for juvenile delinquency andserious antisocial behaviour in youth-at-risk in Asia, especially in Malaysia.

Key Words: midnight football program, physical fitness components, self-esteem,perception on quality of life

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Introduction

It is commonly believed that time youth spend engaging in physical activity is timelessavailable for involvement in risk-taking behaviours and delinquency although the healthbenefits of participation in physical activity are well documented. Increased time in sport islikely to increase one’s exposure to various identity alternatives available through sport andafford individuals additional opportunity to change their self-perceptions (Stryker, 1987).

Based on the association between sports participation and elements of quality of life,Zabriskie, Lundberg, & Groff (2005) explored the relationship between an individual’sathletic identity and the influence of sports participation on quality of life. They reported astrong correlation between athletic identity and influence on quality of life for a group of 129recreational athletes. The majority of participants either agreed or strongly agreed thatparticipation in sports program positively influenced their overall health (79%), quality of life(84.2%), quality of family life (70%), and quality of social life (69.4%).

Today, physical conditioning is a key element for success in football competition (Wang,1995). Without it, regardless of what skills and talents the players have, they cannot performthe sport efficiently (Wang, 1995). The physiological demands of football require players tobe competent in several aspects of fitness, which include aerobic and anaerobic power,muscle strength, flexibility and agility (Reilly & Doran, 2003).

A good aerobic endurance base is critical because it improves performance by increasing thedistance covered, enhancing work intensity, and increasing the number of sprints andinvolvements with the ball during a match (Helgerud, Engen, Wisloff, & Hoff, 2001). Agreater endurance capacity can lead to more work performed during a match, as well as afaster pace throughout (Bangsbo, Norregaard, Thorso, 1991). Appropriate aerobicconditioning plays a significant part in allowing players to repeatedly perform high-intensityactivity.

Anaerobic power refers to the ability of the neuromuscular system to produce the greatestpossible impulse in a given time period (Cometri, Maffiuletti, Pousson, Chatard, & Maffulli,2001). The emphasis in training should be mainly on the short distance sprints of 10-15 m,because these distances are more indicative of performance and match-winning actions thanlonger sprints of 30-40 m (Cometti et al., 2001).

Agility is the ability to change the direction of the body rapidly and is a result of acombination of strength, speed, balance and coordination (Draper & Lancaster, 1985). Agilityperformance is an important component of physiological assessment in football. The resultsfrom such evaluations should be used in conjunction with data from single sprints to providean overall indication of a player’s ability to sprint and change direction rapidly (Little &Williams, 2003).

Self-esteem is a synthesis of descriptive valuation assessment concerning one’s ownpersonality and one’s own actions. Self-esteem changes during life depending on the stage ofthe person’s development and situations and events that occur during their life. Self-esteemhas a significant influence on human emotions and behaviour. A large deal of empiricalresearch has focused on personality and social risk factors for juvenile delinquency andserious antisocial behaviour (Burton & Marshall, 2005; Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins,

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Moffitt, & Caspi, 2005; Matsuura, Hashimoto, & Toichi, 2009b; Penney, Moretti, & DaSilva, 2008).

A number of such studies have pointed out low self-esteem, aggression, inattention, andimpulsivity as strong risk factors (Brame, Nagin, & Tremblay, 2001; Del Bove, Caprara,Pastorelli, & Paciello, 2008; Frick, Cornell, Barry, Bodin, & Dane, 2003). In particular, lowself-esteem has been implicated in a variety of youth-related problems such as deviantbehaviour, social withdrawal, and bullying (Gardner, Dishion, & Connell, 2008; Menon etal., 2007; Rice, Lifford, Thomas, & Thapar, 2007). Adolescents with low self-esteem aresignificantly more likely to have development of mental illness, suffer poor physical health,risk more criminal convictions, and have fewer economic prospects in adult life whencompared with adolescents with high self-esteem (Trzesniewski et al., 2006).

Research regarding the association between self-esteem and physical activity has suggestedthat participation in sports teams is positively associated with higher self-esteem (Keane,2004; Pedersen & Seidman, 2004). Although physical activity has been associated withimprovements in self-esteem (Alfermann & Stoll, 2000; Fox, 2000). There is little evidenceto suggest that any one mode of activity is better than another, although most studies havefocused on aerobic activity (Fox, 2000). Therefore, the main aim of the present study was toinvestigate the influence of the “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program onphysical fitness components, quality of life and self-esteem in youth-at-risk and makecomparisons between the baseline data and the post-program data.

Our review of existing literature on the subject showed that only a few researches, one of thatcould find explored the impact of swimming on self-esteem (Coatsworth & Conroy, 2006;Mummery, 2008). Also, given the popularity of football game in Malaysia and thedifferential value this might have in different segments of the population (Martin & Sinden,2001), exploring self-esteem and its relationship to other forms of exercise or activity wouldalso be advantageous.

There has been little empirical research to determine whether participation in the sportingprogram able to change the perception on the quality of life, particularly with the youth-at-risk. We postulated that there would be significant differences between the baseline and post-program data on the physical fitness components, self-esteem and quality of life.

Objectives

The main aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the “Off the Street, On theBall” Midnight Football Program on physical fitness components, self-esteem and perceptionon quality of life between baseline and post-program in youth-at-risk. Other specificobjectives are:

1. To compare the significance differences on the physical fitness components(cardiovascular endurance, speed and agility) between baseline and post- programdata with specific tests.

2. To examine the perception on quality of life with the sub-scale of the Influence onQuality of Life Scale (IQLS) between baseline and post-program.

3. To compare the significance differences on self-esteem with the Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale (RSES) between baseline and post-program.

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Subjects

A total of 58 male participants in the pilot project “Off the Street, On the Ball” MidnightFootball Program organized by the Social Welfare Department, Asian Football Confederation(AFC) were recruited as the subjects of this study. They were aged 14-19 years, with a meanage of 16.72 (SD= 1.24) years. The participants of this program were selected throughreferrals from the member association of AFC, government, NGOs, sponsors and youthoutreach organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They came from all walks of life andwere generally unguided in the way they lived their lives, ie. School drop-out (36.21%),Juvenile school (39.66%), Disciplinary problems in school (22.41%) and others (1.72%) andmajority of them came from the low income family (93.10%) and middle income family(6.90%).

All subjects were fully informed verbally and in writing about the nature and demands of thestudy. They completed a health history questionnaire and were informed that they couldwithdraw from the study at any time, even after giving their written consent.

Instrumentations

In order to measure the physical fitness components (aerobic endurance, speed and agility),three tests were carried out. These three field tests were used to evaluate the aerobicendurance, speed and agility of soccer players because these tests are the most commonlyrepresented in the literature base. Fitness tests performed in the field may provide lessaccurate measurements than laboratory tests but they have greater specificity (Balsom, 1994;MacDougall & Wenger, 1991). Moreover, the field tests require minimal equipment and canbe carried out anywhere. Also, results from field tests provide information on specificperformance changes related to the sport and are less time consuming. Thus, three field testschosen for current study were:

1. The Yo-Yo tests

The concept of shuttle running was used by Bangsbo (1993b) to devise a more football-specific assessment. The Yo-Yo tests were designed to measure the ability to perform boutsof repeated intense intermittent exercise (Yo-Yo intermittent endurance test) and the ability torecover from intense exercise (Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test) (Bangsbo, 1993b). The Yo-Yo tests have been used extensively in the assessment of the football-specific endurancecapacity of players and referees (Krustrup & Bangsbo, 2001; Krustrup et al., 2003; Mohr etal., 2003a). The intermittent endurance test and the intermittent recovery test have also beenused to differentiate playing positions (Bangsbo & Michalsik, 2002) and to differentiatebetween top-class and moderate ability football players (Mohr et al., 2003a). Due to thefootball-specific nature and easy administration of the Yo-Yo test, it would be a useful formof evaluation throughout the season to monitor changes in football-specific fitness. The Yo-yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1 (YYIRTLl) has been both externally and internallyvalidated (Krustrup et al., 2001; Krustrup et al., 2003; Mohr et al., 2003a).

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2. Single-sprint test

Speed is a very important component in football, as the ability to accelerate can decideimportant outcomes of the game. Players have to possess the ability to accelerate to meet thephysical, tactical and technical demands of the game. During a match, players sprint overdistances of 10 – 30 m for average durations of less than 6 s (Reilly & Thomas, 1976).Typically, 10-, 20- or 30-m sprints are used in the assessment of a player’s ability to sprint(Kollath & Quade, 1993; Strudwick, Reilly, & Doran, 2002).

10-m Sprint Time was measured using an electronic photo cells connected to a Lafayette63501 timer (Lafayette Instrument Co. Systems, Lafayette, IN). A photocell was placed at thestart, and 10 m. The first photocell was positioned at a height of 50 cm from the ground andthe photocells of 10 m was placed at the height of the head of the boys, in an attempt tostandardize the part of the body breaking the photocell (Balsom et al., 1992a). The boysstarted on a visual signal from a standing position and ran the 10-m distance as fast aspossible on the soccer field. After 1 practice trial, 2 sprints were performed, separated by a 5-minute recovery period, and the fastest was used for subsequent analysis. All performancetimes were recorded with an accuracy of 0.001 seconds, and the time from 0 to 10 mrecorded. This sprint distance was selected because this is the most common during soccergames (Bangsbo et al., 1991).

3. Test for the determination of agility

A good example of an agility test was described by Balsom (1994) and is illustrated in Figure1. The test requires a player to perform two turns and several changes in direction.Performance on the test is determined by the time taken to complete the test course, withfaster times signifying better performances. Time measured using an electronic photo cellsconnected to a Lafayette 63501 timer (Lafayette Instrument Co. Systems, Lafayette, IN). Aphotocell was placed at the start and finishing point.

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Figure 1. Test course of the agility test. Players start at A, sprint tothe cones at B, turn at B, back through A, through C and turn at

D, then through C and B to finish (Balsom, 1994).

4. Influence on Quality of Life Scale (IQLS)

The perception on quality of life between baseline and post-program from the subjects werecollected with the Influence on Quality of Life Scale (IQLS: Zabriskie, Lundberg, & Groff,2005) in this study. The IQLS (Zabriskie et al., 2005) was developed in an effort to measurean individuals’ perception of the influence of participation in a particular sport program, orexperience on their quality of life. The IQLS asks respondents to agree or disagree with fivestatements regarding the influence of Midnight Football Program on their perception onquality of life. Items include the perceived influence of the “Off the Street, On the Ball”Midnight Football Program on overall health, quality of life, quality of family life, quality ofsocial life, and family participation on the meaning of the experience for respondents. Itemsare scored on a 7-point Likert scale with responses ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ to‘strongly agree’. Total scores for the instrument can range from 5 – 35 with higher scoresindicating that the “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program had a moresignificant impact on perceived quality of life. The IQLS has acceptable internal consistency(α = 0.87). Initial evidence of construct validity for its use with elite and recreational athleteshas been reported (Zabriskie et al., 2005).

1 m7.5m

7.5m

15m

Finished

3 m

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5. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)

To measure self-esteem at the global level between baseline and post-program from thesubjects, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES: Rosenberg, 1965) was administered. TheRSES is perhaps the most widely used self-esteem measure in social science research. Thequestionnaire has 10 items and all items were rated on a four-point Likert scale with verbalanchors of: Strongly Disagree (1), Disagree (2), Agree (3), and Strongly Agree (4) with thehigher scores representing more positive self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1986). The RSES has goodinternal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminate validity(Blascovich & Tomaka, 1991). RSES was used in this study because it has shown thepresence of method effects with negatively worded items in previous studies (Horan,DiStefano, & Motl, 2003; Motl & DiStefano, 2002; Tomás & Oliver, 1999). The currentstudy revealed a Cronbach alpha of 0.81 for both baseline and post-program tests.

Procedures

The baseline data were collected on September, 2010, two days before the program kicks-offat the Padang Sri Johor, Taman Ikan Emas, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. Immediately after a shortbriefing, the subjects were asked to response to the IQLS and the RSES questionnaires. Thesequestionnaires took approximately 10 minutes to complete by the subjects. Trained projectstaff administered questionnaires to subjects at the competition venue following astandardized protocol that emphasized the confidentiality of participant reports. Approval bythe Sports Centre, University of Malaya review board was obtained before initiating thisstudy.

After completed the questionnaires, the subjects were divided into 3 groups to carry out thephysical fitness tests (aerobic endurance, single-sprint and agility). The groups moved fromone station to another after completed the test which stipulated for that station.

Post-program test for the program was held on October, 2010 when the subjects werecompleted the training sessions and competition program for four-week continuity, the sameprocedures in the baseline were applied in the post-program test. During the training period,the subjects were divided into eight groups to carry out the schedule training program basedon their team coach, a few motivation and educational talks also were conducted by thePROSTAR CLUB, current National Football Players (from Malaysian Team), Social WelfareDepartment and AFC Officer. Topics covered related to effective way to quit smoking,mental health, how to be a good footballer, future career and technical issues pertainingfootball referee and coach.

Statistical Analysis

Descriptive statistic (mean and standard deviation) of the physical fitness components andsub-scales in IQLS between baseline and post-program were reported. To compare thevariables between baseline and post-program, dependent samples t-test was used. The level ofstatistical significance is set at p<.05. Data were analyzed with SPSS 16.

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Results

Physical Fitness Components

Results of present study revealed that all physical fitness components (aerobic endurance,speed and agility) were significant difference between baseline and post-program test at p <.05 as presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Comparison of Physical Fitness Components between Baseline and Post-programTest

Test Time-frame Mean SD t-value df P-value

Yo-Yo Intermittent(Level)

Baseline 13.75 .83

-2.56 90 .012

Post-program 14.27 1.11

10m Single Sprint(Second)

Baseline 2.56 .16

1.99 90 .049

Post-program 2.49 .16

Balsom Agility(Second)

Baseline 14.60 1.11

6.23 90 .001

Post-program 13.36 .74

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Global Self-Esteem

Table 2 shows results for the self-esteem for the subjects. Results indicated significantdifferences favouring the Post-program test (t=-19.82, df=91, p<.05).

Table 2: Comparison of Self-Esteem between Baseline and Post-program Test withRosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

Time-Frame Mean SD t-value df P-value

Baseline 17.43 1.69

-19.82 91 .001

Post-programTest

24.06 1.33

Quality of Life Responses

An analysis of the individual items on the IQLS indicated that the majority of participantsthought that the “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program had a positiveinfluence on several aspects of their quality of life. The vast majority of the subjects eitheragreed or strongly agreed that involvement in the midnight football program positivelyinfluenced their overall health (98%) from the base line (6.9%). Perception on other aspectson quality of life also had a positive influenced as presented in Table 3.

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Table 3: Comparison on Perception Quality of Life between Baseline and Post-program-Test with Influence on Quality of Life Scale (IQLS)I FeelGood onmyCurrent.../

The Mid-NightFootballProgramhave had apositiveInfluenceon my ...

StronglyDisagree

DisagreeSome what

disagreeNeither agree nor

disagreeSome what agree Agree Strongly agree

% of agreed andstrongly agreed

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Baseline

(%)

Post-program-Test

(%)

Quality ofOverallHealth

0 0 6.9 0 34.5 0 29.3 0 22.4 0 6.9 23.7 0 74.3 6.9 98

Quality ofLife

1.7 0 8.6 0 3.4 0 6.9 0 19.0 1.4 41.4 42.9 19.0 45.7 60.4 88.6

Quality ofFamilyLife

5.2 0 3.4 5.7 1.7 3.9 5.2 2.9 19.0 5.7 29.3 31.4 36.2 51.4 65.5 82.8

Quality ofSocialLife

3.4 0 10.3 8.6 6.9 0 8.6 0 10.3 8.6 29.3 28.6 31.0 54.3 60.3 82.9

FamilyParticipation

5.2 2.9 10.3 5.7 6.9 2.9 3.4 2.9 3.4 5.7 29.3 28.6 41.4 51.4 70.7 80

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Discussions

Results of the present study revealed that all the physical fitness components chosen hadsignificant differences between baseline and post-program in the subjects as a consequence oftraining. Football training drills and games involved continuous running, speeding andchanges of direction. Thus, aerobic capacity, speed and agility performances improved withthis type of training. Aerobic capacity was significant differences at baseline and post-program performance (t=-2.56, df=90, p<.05) with Yo-Yo Intermittent test; speed wassignificantly difference between baseline and post-program (t=1.99, df=90, p<.05) with 10mSingle Sprint and agility also showed significant difference between baseline and post-program (t=6.23, df=90, p<.05) with Balsom Agility test.

Findings of current study was consistent with previous study that training-induced changes inaerobic fitness have been extensively studied in young athletes, it seems that aerobic training(interval or continuous) leads to a mean improvement of 5-10% of VO2max in active childrenand adolescents as compared to improvement magnitude of 20% or more in adult athletes(Baquet, Van Praagh, & Berthoin, 2003). The results of this study supported that the aerobicsystem is the main source of energy provision (Reilly, Bangsbo, & Franks, 2000) and about75-90% of the total body's energy expenditure and consumption come from the aerobicsystem (Hoff, Wisloff, Engen, Kemi, & Helgerud, 2002). Findings of this study confirmedthat all the physical fitness components were trainable in adolescent.

The “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program resulted in significant changesin self-esteem between baseline and post-program (t=-19.82, df=91, p<.05). Morespecifically, these findings suggest that following the 4-week programs, participants hadsignificant gains in self-esteem which support the suggestion that the “Off the Street, On theBall” Midnight Football Program foster positive self-worth (Danish & Petitpas, 1993). Ourfindings are consistent with a cross-sectional study of 92 children between the ages of 10 and16 years, Strauss, Rodzilsky, & Burack, (2001) found that self-efficacy was associated withphysical activity, and concluded that high level physical activity was important in thedevelopment of self-esteem in children (Strauss et al., 2001).

Based upon the findings reported herein, it is consistent with a comprehensive review on theeffects of exercise interventions on self-esteem, Fox (2000a) identified two studies did assessthese effects, and revealed an increase in self-esteem after a Tai Chi and a walkingintervention respectively (Li, Harmer, Chaumeton, Duncan, & Duncan, 2002; McAuley,Blissmer, Katula, Duncan, & Mihalko, 2000). It is supported that adolescents with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to have development of mental illness, suffer poorphysical health, risk more criminal convictions, and have fewer economic prospects in adultlife when compared with adolescents with high self-esteem (Trzesniewski et al., 2006).

It is interesting to note that a vast majority of participants reported that their participation in“Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program had a significant factor ininfluencing the quality of their overall health, quality of life, quality of their family life, andquality of their social life. The findings of this study support previous research that illustratesthe influence of participation in physical activity and sport on perceived quality of life (Blinde& McClung, 1997). Thus, creating opportunities to experience well-being and quality of lifeare particularly important because of their relationship to overall health and happiness (Carr,2004).

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In the present study we found that for individuals who choose to involve their familymembers in sport, this study provided some additional support for the notion that this sharedexperience will influence the quality of family life (Zabriskie et al., 2005). Encouragingfamily involvement in sport may therefore; positively impact the overall meaning that sporthas on the individual and the quality of family life (Zabriskie et al., 2005).

The majority of participants either agreed or strongly agreed that participation in this programpositively influenced their quality of social life (82.9%) from the baseline (60.3%). It appearsthat the adolescence participation in sport has influenced individuals become identified withparticular groups of peers. Being a member of a particular peer network reflects anindividual’s values, while influencing an individual’s attitudes and the norms to which theyare exposed (Brown, Dolcini, & Leventhal, 1997).

Youth living in low income socially stigmatized communities face a number of issues such aspoverty, the stress of living in "war zones", and the influence of gangs and drug trafficking.Programs that do exist tend to "blame the victim" by attempting to "keep them off the street"or remedy their perceived deficiencies, rather than placing the blame where it belongs, onunresponsive educational, social and political institutions (McLaughlin & Heath, 1993).

The “Off the Street, On the Ball” Midnight Football Program initiated by AFC is consistent toa unique type of physical activity programming called developmentally focused youth sportsprograms (DYS) which has accumulated over the past decade (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005;Perkins & Noam, 2007, & Petitpas et al., 2005). DYS programs teach sport and life skillsconcurrently (Petitpas et al., 2005) using sport as a medium for providing youth withopportunities for psychological, emotional, social, and intellectual growth (Fraser-Thomas etal., 2005; Perkins & Noam, 2007). Sport programs provide the opportunity for life skillsinstruction because of parallels that exist between life and sport including problem solving,goal setting, teamwork, communication, management of success and failure, and receivingand applying constructive feedback (Goudas & Giannoudis, 2008). In addition, sport and lifeskills have similar learning modes such as demonstration, modelling, and practice (Orlick &McCaffrey, 1991).

The obtained results confirm the positive influence of the “Off the Street, On the Ball”Midnight Football Program on quality of life and self-esteem, which complies with thefindings of other researchers (Bottomley, 1997).

To our knowledge, the current study is the first to demonstrate the beneficial effects of theFootball Program on Physical Fitness Components, Self-Esteem and Quality of Life in youth-at-risk in Asia. Overall, the results of the current study lend additional support to the use ofFootball Program to reduce social risk factors for juvenile delinquency and serious antisocialbehaviour, especially in Malaysia.

Limitations

The main limitation in this study was, all questionnaires were self-administered. Selfadministered questionnaires have the disadvantage of a strong possibility of bias, but arereliable in that information known only to the respondents can be obtained, and suchinformation can be collected at a low cost.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Ingill Ra, Director of Social Responsibility Department, AFC for his kind co-operation enable us to carry out his study; Azizah Abdullah & Dunstan Cheng, SocialResponsibility Department, AFC for their arrangement and facilitating us during datacollections.

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A PRELIMINARY LOOK AT PERSONALITY ANALYSIS ASA COACHING STRATEGY

Wee Eng HoeTunku Abdul Rahman College, Kuala Lumpur

Tan Chee HianUniversiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor

AbstractThis paper explores the need to understand athletes’ personalities in ensuring favourablecoaching outcomes. Successful coaching cannot be judged based solely on winning or losingbut also based on the development of athletes. As such, the process of coaching must bechanged to involve the learning of athletes’ personality types. No two athletes are the samebut many have similar characteristics. The understanding of personality would enablecoaches to cater their approaches to athletes accordingly and achieve positive outcomeswithout enduring unnecessary stress. Although some researchers have found contradictionsand difficulties in personality research based on sports due to the different methodologiesused, this paper will embark on two approaches to explore the issue. The approaches are thereview of literature on personality types and the presentation of the findings of local studiesbased on different personality models. Specifically, the review will include behaviourcharacteristics of athletes, personality traits of athletes from individual and team sports,athletes’ personalities from different types of sports, personality and ability to learn motorskills, personality differences between contact and non-contact sports and personalitydifferences with different body types. The local studies will focus on Sanguine-Choleric-Melancholic and Phlegmatic Model (SCMP) and The Big-Five Model. Based on the findings,strategies will be suggested for coaches to address the difficulties faced in coaching athleteswith diverse personality.

Keywords: personality, coaching, Big-Five Model, athletic profile

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Introduction

Although the personality of athletes has been used to understand, explain and predict athletes’behaviours (Geron, Furst & Rotstein, 1986; Kirkcaldy, 1982, Weinberg & Gould, 2011),many coaches have not considered it a strategy for effective coaching. Therefore, they havenot attempted to apply it in their training. This may be due to the inconsistencies andcontradictory results from the various studies of personality among athletes (Geron, Furst &Rotstein, 1986; Hardman, 1973; Kane, 1982; Morgan, 1978). It should be noted that someconsistent characteristics of athletes were found in some studies (Blaser & Schilling, 1976;Johnson & Morgan, 1981; Kroll, Loy, Hosek & Vanek, 1973; Schurr, Ashley & Joy, 1977)but comparison of the findings is difficult to achieve due to differences in methodology asresearchers employed different instruments (Bhullar, 1974; Mushier, 1972; Slusher ,1964;Thakur & Thakur,1978), different combined groups of samples and irrelevant statisticalanalysis (Kane, 1982; Morgan, 1978). Personality is the sum of characteristics that make aperson unique. The study of personality helps us work better with students, athletes andexercisers (Weinberg & Gould, 2011). Weinberg and Gould (2011) also emphasized thatgetting to know the real person, which is the individual’s psychological core and typicalmodes of response, produces insight into the individuals’ motivations, actions and behaviours.As such, it is important to understand those aspects of athletes so that coaches can choose thebest way to help them and achieve coaching objectives.

A coach should be conscious of the circumstances surrounding the life of an athlete(Yukelson, 2001). Therefore, athletes should not be neglected and an analysis of theirpersonality should be conducted. With the personality profile, a coach should be able to adaptto the variability of personalities among the athletes. The ability to understand and respond tothe individual needs of each athlete is a critical element of effective coach-athletecommunication (Yukelson, 2001).

Numerous research on college students showed that personality can be used as acoaching strategy because it is stable. In a meta-analysis, Roberts and Del Vecchio (2000)found that personality traits become increasingly stable across the lifespan with test-retestcorrelations increasing from .30 in children to .54 in young adults from age 18 to 21.9 and toaround .70 in adults age 50 to 70. Similarly, in examining personality changes of youngadults, aged 18-26 in a longitudinal study of 1000 participants, Roberts, Caspi and Moffit(2001) confirmed that 93% of the sample had relatively stable traits over an 8-year period.

Personality and Athletes

In a study of personality, Cooper (1969) found that athletes were more competitive, dominant,self-confident, and achievement-oriented. Athletes have also been found to be morepsychologically well-adjusted and often report higher levels of self-esteem than non-athletes(Kamal, 1995). Research has also indicated that, compared with non-athletes, athletes oftenhold slightly more conservative political views (Rehberg & Schafer, 1968), are moreauthoritarian (LeUnes & Nation, 1982), and demonstrate higher levels of persistence (Lufi &Tenenbaum, 1991).

Kirkcaldy (1984) emphasized that the study of individual differences permits betterappreciation of the personality types in athletes. Generally, successful athletes arecharacterized by a more extraverted, tough minded and less neurotic personality than non-athletes. As such, a coach should be aware of these qualities and capitalize on it to achieve

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better results in sports training and competition. Eysenck (1982) stressed that coaches shouldrealize that the individual differences have their origin in physiology systems associated witharousal which in turn, sets up behavioural patterns. Emotionally unstable individuals will bemore anxious and face more conflict. Since arousal is related to performance, differentpersonality types will definitely affect the level of performance.

Regarding performance, in an observation of interaction between Extraversion-Introversion and skill acquisition, Eysenck (1982) found that introverts benefit fromimpersonal coaching methods whereas extroverts enjoy variability of instructions and enjoysocial interaction with team mates. Extraverts can recall better and learn more rapidly oncomplex tasks that are current. Conversely, introverts were more superior in memory recallafter longer periods of time. This differences in learning method should be recognized bycoaches and provide them with new insights when coaching athletes. In addition, Eysenck(1982) found that extroverts produce more errors in performance; they posses lower levels ofaspiration than introverts but could work on different tasks at one time. On the other hand,introverts’ performance would be disrupted by a second task. However, introverts performbetter in mental imagery.

Personality and Gender of Athletes

In a study of female athletes, Malumphy (1968) found individual female athletes to be moreanxious, venturesome, tough-minded, and extraverted whilst team athletes were lower inleadership, less venturesome and extraverted. In addition, Rushall (1967) discovered that maleswimmers (individual sport) were more individualistic and self-centered. Similarly, Hendry’s(1968) Bristish swimmers’ profiles showed that they tend to be introverts. This is againsupported by Warburton and Kane (1966) that many top track and field athletes andswimmers showed predominance to introversion. In a study regarding the personality ofcollege male athletes, Thakur and Thakur (1978) found that the characteristics associated withthe athletes were happiness, cordial and affectionate relations, anxiety, achievement,dominance and superior organization capacity. In Malaysia, Yusof Ismail (1989) studiedpersonality and sports motivation among varsity athletes using Universiti KebangsaanMalaysia students and found that personality was weakly but significantly related to sportsmotivation (in positive or negative direction) among varsity athletes. There was also amoderate gender relationship between the dependent variables. Male varsity athletes reportedsignificant positive relationship between the four personality subscales of ascendancy,responsibility, emotional stability, and sociability with the ports motivation subscales ofaggression, conflict (for sociability only), competence of aggression, conflict (for sociabilityonly), competence, and cooperation. Conversely, female varsity athletes reported a significantnegative relationship between the personality subscale of emotional stability with sportsmotivation subscales of conflict, competition, and cooperation.

Numerous findings indicated that female athletes possess a stable personality profile.When compared with non-athlete females, female participants tend to be less angry, confused,depressed, and neurotic (Freedson, Mihevic, Loucks, & Girandola, 1983). Based on herresearch with female United States Olympians, Balazs (1975) concluded that elite femaleathletes could be best described as high in the need for achievement and autonomy. Inaddition, Williams (1980) noted that female athletes often display assertiveness, aggression,and dominance. He concluded that female athletes tend to exhibit traits that are more similarto male athletes and non-athletes than to female non-athletes. When comparing the personalitycharacteristics of male swimmers with female swimmers, Rushall (1967) found that females

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were socially bold, noisy and unrestrained in their behavior whereas males appear to be self-centered and individualistic. It has also been found that novice female swimmers were, ingeneral, more introverted than a control group of female athletes that are not primarilyengaged in swimming (Meredith & Harris, 1969). Coaches should differentiate between maleand female athletes and coach them based on the personality type; coaches should analyze thestrength and weaknesses of athletes based on their personality type.

Personality and Individual and Team Athletes

Personality plays an important role in athletes’ participation of individual or team sports.Kirkcaldy (1984) found that extraverted individuals, which are characterized by impulsive,sociable, easy-going and optimistic behaviour, would be attracted to team sports because itprovides for their need of social interactions. Coaches would then be able to gauge whetherthe athletes under him/her will be able to adapt to the team well or otherwise. This analysis ofpersonality will enable the coach to examine players and make decisions based on thesuitability of a candidate. This would be done by assessing the degree of agreement betweenthe coach’s analysis of the task and the candidates’ abilities. Kirkcaldy (1984) stressed that acoach could use a battery of psychological tests, which act as predictor variables. Thisanalysis would then be used to categorize the athletes and place them according to the degreeof compatibility with the specified criterion.

A West German study done by Sack (1975) revealed that middle and long distancerunners, when compared to handball and football players, were different along thedimensions, dominance, introversion-extraversion (and body-build). Peterson (1967) foundthat individual athletes were significantly more dominant, adventurous, emotional, radical andless dependent than team participants. Kane (1970) showed a complex relationship betweenthe second order personality variable “Extraversion” and performance of “track athletes”:sprinters and “throwers”. They were frequently more extraverted than middle-distancerunners. From his research, he claims that as the distance increases, there is a trend towardsintroversion. Johnson (1972) had demonstrated differences between female athletesparticipating in sports such as basketball, bowling, field- hockey and golf, as did Kroll andCrenhaw (1968) between footballers, wrestlers and gymnasts.

Over the years, questions have been raised about the personality traits of athletesparticipating in individual sports and team sports. The personality traits of women inindividual sports and in team sports were studied by Peterson, Weber and Trousdale (1969).They found that women athletes competing in individual sports rated higher on dominance,adventurousness, sensitivity, introversion, radicalism, and self-sufficiency and lower insophistication, when compared to women athletes competing in team sports.

In other studies, many researchers (Foster, 1972; Meredith & Harris, 1969; Peterson etal., 1969; Rushall, 1967) reported that women athletes who participated in individual sportswere more dominant, adventurous, sensitive, radical, imaginative, self-sufficient, and moreforthright than women competing in team sports.

Many researchers (Eysenck, 1982; Hendry & Douglas, 1975; Kirkcaldy, 1982) studiedpersonality and sex differences in team sports and found that team athletes were extraverted,emotionally more stable (females being less stables than males athletes), self-sufficient,tough-minded, dominant, aggressive, and hostile.

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Personality and Contact and Non-Contact Athletes

It has been found that extraversion was higher for athletes in ‘direct’ sports where aggressionis permitted via contact than in ‘parallel’ sports where it is not (Newcombe & Boyle, 1995).This is similar to the high sensation-seekers who engage in riskier sports to satisfy their needfor new experiences (Young, 1990). This implies that there are pre-existing differences whichdraw participants into different sports (the gravitational hypothesis).

Athletes in contact sports are likely to differ in a number of ways from those in non-contact sports, particularly in height and weight. If personality is related to body build,physical differences may account for personality differences between athletes in varioussports. In fact, while he recognized that some of the relationships may be based onstereotypes, Sheldon found that more muscular types (mesomorphs) are more outgoing thanless muscular types (ectomorphs) (Hall & Lindzey, 1957).

Personality and Sport Injury

Some studies have found that psychology has a great influence on the occurrence andrecovery from injury and illness (Clark & Robertson, 2005; Raynor & Levine, 2009). Onemain component of sport psychology that has been found to influence the occurrence of injuryis life stress. Contributing stressors include social support, coping skills, and personality(Albu, 2009). Personality is the basis of these three stressors. Personality determines how aperson will normally think, feel, and act. When put in a particular situation, a person’spersonality will influence how they respond to the circumstance (Lluis-Font, 2005).

Using Big Five Model of Personality Analysis as Coaching Strategy

The Big Five Model conceptualizes personality through five constructs: Extraversion;Conscientiousness; Agreeableness; Neuroticism or Emotional Stability; and Openness toExperience (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1981). Table 1 below examines thecharacteristics for the five constructs to provide a better understanding of the model.

Table 1 The characteristics of the Big Five personality constructs

Extraversion Conscientiousness

Agreeableness EmotionalStability

Openness toExperience

Talkative Outgoing Energetic Dominant Optimistic Expressive Seeks

attention

Team player Good self-

control Focused on

tasks & goals Think before

action Follow norms

& rules Plan, organize

& prioritize

Communalorientation

Selflessness Honest/

Trusting Moral Tender-minded Modest Cooperative Tolerant Accommoda-

Negativeemotionality

Calm Poised Self-confident Secure with

decisions Anxious,

vulnerable Tense Moody

Open-minded Love of

adventure Love arts Imaginative Curious Interested in

novel ideas

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tasks ting Aggressive Rude Spiteful Stubborn Cynical Manipulative

Angry Easily

frustrated Insecure in

relationships

Research conducted in Malaysia

Purpose

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the Big Five Personality Factor (Extraverts,Agreeableness, Openness to Change, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability) amongsport science students of a public university in Malaysia.

Demographic Data of the Respondents

One hundred students, comprised of 50 athletes and 50 non-athletes (54.0% male and 46.0%female), were studied. 8.0% of them were less than 20 years old, 72.0% were 21-23 years old,16.0% from 24- 26 year group and 4.0% were 27 years old and above. In terms of sportsexperience, 94% of them have participated in sports. 67% had 3-4 years experience, 18% 1-2years experience, 9% had less than a year experience while 6% had no sports participation.Among those involved in sports, 21% are involved at school level, 22% at district level, 41%state level and 10 % achieved national level of involvement. In terms of the type of sportsinvolved, 8% of the students were involved in hockey, 4% in rugby, 3% each in archery,badminton, bowling and table tennis, 5% in handball, 14% in netball, 15% in football, 9% involleyball, 5% in sepak takraw, and 22% in other sports.

Findings

The statistics showed that 31 (62%) of the respondents were extravert, 29 (58%) hadagreeable personality, 32 (58%) were open to change, 45 (90%) were conscientious and 40(80%) were emotionally stable. Results of ANOVA showed no significant differences amongathletes from different levels of involvement in the five personality sub-scales. No significantresults were also obtained among athletes from different sports in the five sub-scales.Comparison of male and female athletes also yielded no significant results in all the five sub-scales.

Strategy for Coaches

Coaches should attempt to develop training based on the findings. A high percentage of‘conscientiousness’ means that athletes are competent, organized, achieving and proactive.John and Srivastava (1999) emphasized that highly conscientious individual think before theyact, follow norms and rules, and plan, organize, and prioritize tasks. This is supported by VanVianen and De Drwu (2001) that athletes with these characteristics are responsible, organized,self-disciplined, achievement-oriented, hard working, and exhibit maximum effort andperseverance toward individual and team goals. This will definitely help coaches to push theathletes into achieving higher goals. The athletes were also stable emotionally which means

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that they are confident, resilient, contented and relaxed. The quality of confident and resilientshould be exploited by the coaches to gain more during training. However, the contented andrelaxed behaviour among athletes should be tackled accordingly to not to jeopardize the sportstraining programme.

Majority of athletes were extraverts which mean that they are friendly, outgoing, assertive andenergetic. These athletes value social interaction so coaches should give them the opportunityfor increased social interaction such as holding leadership posts in the sport team. This issupported by Shiner (2006) which noted that extraverts like to be dominant. This willundoubtedly help promote good rapport among team members. Their energetic nature alsomeans that they are able to work harder. This characteristic is recognized by Caspi, Robertsand Shiner (2005) who state that they like to be the center of attraction.

On openness to change, these athletes are imaginative, innovative, and adaptable but prefer tobreak the rule. Coaches must recognize their innovative and imaginative nature and provideroom for them to express that through discussion of training programmes, coaches need toensure rules are kept intact so that the end results are favourable. The ‘agreeableness’ naturemeans that the individual is trusting, straightforward, considerable and unassuming. Coachesshould be open to them but must tackle the unassuming nature; encourage the athletes so thatthey are willing to come forward and involve themselves in activities. On the other hand,Shiner (2006) stated that individuals with low levels of agreeableness could be aggressive,rude, spiteful, stubborn, cynical, and manipulative.

Using SCMP (Sanguine-Choleric-Melancholic-Phlegmatic) Model As Coaching Strategy

Table 2 showed the characteristics of the four constructs of the SCMP Model.

Table 2 Characteristics of Sanguine-Choleric-Melancholic-Phlegmatic constructs

Sanguine(Extrovert/Stable)

Choleric(Extrovert/Unstab

le)

Melancholic(Introvert/Unstable)

Phlegmatic(Introvert/Stable)

Leadership Cheerful Friendly/Sociabl

e Talkative Changeable Lively Restless Energetic/Lively Responsive Self-centered Carefree Curious Undependable

Optimistic Active Confident Strong-willed Assertive Impulsive Hot temper/

Touchy Aggressive Goal oriented Well

organized Faithful Brave Independent

Sensitive Artistic/Creativ

e Perfectionist Analytical Serious and

purposeful Selfless Idealistic Reserved Moody Rigid/lack

flexibility Insecure Anxious Pessimistic

Calm/Stable Patient Controlled Good

listener Dependable/

Reliable Efficient Thoughtful Easy-going Passive Stubborn Lazy

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Inconsiderate Aloof/Reserv

ed

Research conducted in Malaysia

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the personality of athletes using SCMP model.

Demographic Data of the Respondents

Two hundred and fifty-nine athletes which comprised of 193 male (74.5%) and 66 femaleathletes (25.5%) were studied. About 7% of them were less than 20 years old, 62.2% were 20-24 years old, 18.9% from 25- 29 year group and 11.6% were 30 years old and above. In termof sports experience, 63.3% of the athletes were involved in hockey (5.8%), rugby (9.3%),archery (0.8%), bowling (1.2%), hand ball (1.5%), net ball (5.4%), football (18.1%),badminton (5%), volleyball (5.4%), ping pong (1.9%), sepak takraw (8.9%). In terms ofachievements, the athletes were successful at various level; national (38.2%), state (30.1%),district (21.2%) and school (10.4%). 40.5% became champions, 31.7% achieved secondplacing, 12.4% third placing and 15.4% others. In terms of responsibilities in their respectiveteams, 56% were team captain, 2.7% assistant team captain, 1.5% committee member and35% played the role of team members/ players.

Findings

Majority of the athletes (80.7%) are Melancholic followed by Sanguine (8.1%), Phlegmatic(6.6%) and Choleric (4.6%). Results of ANOVA showed no significant differences amongathletes from different levels of involvement in the five personality sub-scales. No significantresults were also obtained among athletes from different sports in the five sub-scales.Comparison of male and female athletes also yielded no significant results in all the five sub-scales.

Strategy for Coaches

For Sanguine type athletes, coaches should understand that they are fun-loving, happy golucky, unorganized, needs attention but needs to be in charge. This mixed personality shouldbe tackled with caution; coaches should ensure training includes fun, give them as muchattention as possible. On the need to be in charge, coaches should give some responsibility tothem but monitor them closely because they are unorganized. Choleric personalities are bornleaders, production oriented, excels in crisis, decisive aggressive and bossy. Coaches couldassign athletes with this personality to be team captains, allow them to make decisions butensure that their aggressiveness is controlled. On the other hand, melancholic individuals areperfectionist, like order, needs details, accept order with ease, and achieve better withrepetition. Coaches should provide details of training to this type of athletes and at the sametime provide adequate repetition during training. Phlegmatic individuals are introverts, dislikeconflicts, externally motivated, no urgency to work and needs well-planned programmes to besuccessful. Coaches need to provide extra motivation to this group of athletes, monitor their

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progress and push them to achieve training goals. Coaches should avoid giving them bigresponsibilities but should encourage them to help out with a lesser responsibility.

Conclusion

Despite the diversity in the instruments used and conflicting results obtained, personalityanalysis should be explored as they can be a useful tool in assisting coaches to achieve betteroutcomes in their training or competition. The analysis would provide a more harmoniouscoach-athlete environment and definitely increase the fun in coaching.

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GROWTH PATTERN AND PEAK GROWTH OF STUDENTS AGED 9 TO 16YEARS

Mohd Rozilee Wazir, Saidon Amri, Kok Lian Yee, Aris Fazil Hj Ujang & Ani Mazlina DewiMohamed

Jabatan Pengajian Sukan, Fakulti Pengajian PendidikanUniversiti Putra Malaysia

AbstractThis study aims to identify growth pattern and growth maturation of boys and girls agedbetween 9 to 16 years. This study is using a cross-sectional design which involved a differentsubject age groups and each subject represented only once as sample. The growth indicator isreferred to standing height of the sample measured using stadiometer. A total of 800 students(400 boys and 400 girls) aged between 9 to 16 years participated in this study using fishbowltechnique. Mean and standard deviation were used to identify the growth pattern and growthmaturation of the boys and girls. Descriptive analysis showed that mean standing height ofthe boys and girls is increased accordingly to their age. However, mean height of the malestudents increased 9.7 cm rapidly at the age of 13 and 14 years. Meanwhile, mean height ofthe girls showed a rapid increase 7.6 cm between the age of 10 and 11 year. It can beconcluded that the pattern growth of boys and girls is in line with their age. However, thepeak time of growth for boys and girls are different, where the boys experienced growth peakat the age of 13 to 14 years, while the girls at the age of 10 to 11 years. In addition, boys werehigher than girls, but at the age of 10 to 13 years girls were founded to be higher than boys.This is happens due to the growth process is at the peak stage at that age.

Keywords: Growth, Growth Maturation, Growth Pattern

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CORAK TUMBESARAN DAN TUMBESARAN PUNCAK PELAJAR BERUMUR 9HINGGA 16 TAHUN

AbstrakKajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti corak tumbesaran dan tumbesaran puncak pelajarlelaki dan pelajar perempuan berumur antara 9 tahun hingga 16 tahun. Kajian ini adalahberbentuk cross-sectional. Pemilihan reka bentuk tersebut adalah kerana kajian inimelibatkan subjek yang berbeza kumpulan umur tetapi dijalankan pada masa yang serentak,dengan setiap subjek mewakili hanya sekali sebagai sampel. Petunjuk tumbesaran di dalamkajian ini adalah ukuran tinggi berdiri pelajar. Seramai 800 orang pelajar (400 pelajar lelaki& 400 pelajar perempuan) yang berumur antara 9 hingga 16 tahun terlibat dalam kajian ini.Tinggi berdiri pelajar telah diukur dengan menggunakan stadiometer. Min dan sisihanpiawai digunakan untuk mengenal pasti corak tumbesaran dan tumbesaran puncak pelajarlelaki dan pelajar perempuan. Manakala, teknik fishbowl digunakan dalam memilih populasidan sampel kajian. Analisis diskriptif bagi min tinggi berdiri menunjukkan ketinggian pelajarlelaki dan perempuan seiring dengan peningkatan umur mereka. Selain itu, min tinggi pelajarlelaki mengalami peningkatan yang pesat ketika berumur antara 13 dan 14 tahun iaitumeningkat sebanyak 9.7 cm. Manakala, min tinggi pelajar perempuan menunjukkanpeningkatan pesat antara umur 10 dan 11 tahun dengan peningkatan sebanyak 7.6 cm. Coraktumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuan adalah seiring dengan peningkatan umurmereka. Namun begitu, masa berlakunya tumbesaran puncak bagi pelajar lelaki dan pelajarperempuan adalah berbeza di mana pelajar lelaki mengalami tumbesaran puncak ketikaberumur 13 hingga 14 tahun, manakal pelajar perempuan mengalami tumbesaran puncakketika berumur 10 hingga 11 tahun. Selain itu, pelajar lelaki didapati lebih tinggi daripadapelajar perempuan, namun ketika berumur 10 hingga 13 tahun pelajar perempuan didapatilebih tinggi daripada pelajar lelaki. Perkara ini disebabkan oleh proses tumbesaran puncakyang berlaku semasa itu.

Kata kunci: Tumbesaran, Tumbesaran Puncak, Corak Tumbesaran

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Pendahuluan

Tumbesaran adalah aktiviti biologi dan merupakan proses semulajadi yang berlaku kepadasetiap manusia. Proses tumbesaran merujuk kepada peningkatan saiz badan secarakeseluruhannya atau peningkatan saiz bagi bahagian badan tertentu. Tumbesaran adalahperubahan kebolehukuran saiz, susuk dan komposisi badan (Malina, Eisenmann, Cumming,Ribeiro & Aroso, 2004). Oleh yang demikian, akan berlakunya perubahan susuk tubuh badansepanjang proses tumbesaran, terutamanya tinggi dan berat badan seseorang. Petunjuktumbesaran yang jelas sekali adalah ketinggian seseorang. Hal ini kerana peningkatanketinggian seseorang mudah dilihat dengan mata kasar. Peningkatan kadar tumbesaran akanterus berlaku sehingga mencapai kemuncak iaitu pecutan puncak ketinggian (peak heightvelocity) pada umur 14 tahun bagi lelaki dan 12 tahun bagi perempuan dan akan beransur-ansur turun dan akhirnya akan berhenti apabila mencapai ketinggian dewasa (Tanner, 1981).Selain itu, proses tumbesaran ketinggian akan mula berhenti sekitar umur 16 tahun bagiperempuan dan sekitar umur 18 tahun bagi lelaki (Beunan & Malina, 1996; Malina, et al.,2004). Proses tumbesaran lelaki berlaku dua tahun lebih lewat berbanding perempuan dan inimenyebabkan lelaki akan mempunyai ketinggian yang lebih daripada perempuan. Oleh yangdemikian, lelaki mempunyai kelebihan dari segi ketinggian, mempunyai kaki dan tangan yanglebih panjang (Chumlea, 1982).

Fasa remaja adalah suatu fasa yang akan memperlihatkan berlakunya pelbagai perubahanfizikal yang pesat dan ketara (Leone & Comtois, 2007). Kanak-kanak perempuan akanmengalami tumbesaran puncak (peak height velocity-PHV) yang lebih awal daripada kanak-kanak lelaki iaitu ketika berumur 12 tahun. Pada masa ini, kanak-kanak perempuan akanmempunyai ketinggian lebih tinggi berbanding dengan kanak-kanak lelaki. Namun begitu,ketika mencapai kedewasaan, ketinggian kanak-kanak lelaki akan mengatasi ketinggiankanak-kanak perempuan dengan purata peningkatan tinggi sebanyak 12 hingga 13 cmsetahun. Lonjakan tumbesaran kanak-kanak lelaki akan bermula ketika berumur 12 atau 13tahun dan memuncak ketika berumur 14 tahun dan kemudiannya beransur-ansur menjadiperlahan ketika berumur 16 tahun sebelum berhenti ketika berumur 19 tahun (Malina et al.,2004). Manakala, lonjakan tumbesaran kanak-kanak perempuan bermula ketika berumur 10tahun atau 11 tahun dan mula berhenti ketika berumur 18 tahun atau 19 tahun.

Ketika ini di Malaysia, tumbesaran kanak-kanak dan remaja adalah merujuk kepada cartatumbesaran yang dikeluarkan oleh Centre for Disease Control (CDC) di Amerika Syarikatyang merekodkan berat, tinggi dan ukur lilit kepala berbanding umur, dan berat berbandingtinggi. Perlu diperjelaskan bahawa tumbesaran puncak berlaku pada umur yang berbeza bagikaum yang berbeza ataupun warna kulit yang berbeza. Lelaki India dan lelaki berkulit putihmengalami tumbesaran puncak lebih awal berbanding dengan lelaki berkulit hitam (Pienaar &Viljoen, 2010). Perbezaan tersebut mungkin dipengaruhi oleh faktor-faktor sepertipersekitaran, budaya, pemakanan dan genetik. Oleh yang demikian, tumbesaran puncak danketinggian pelajar-pelajar di Malaysia mungkin mempunyai perbezaan dengan dapatannegara-negara lain.

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Metodologi

Populasi Dan Persampelan Kajian

Populasi kajian terdiri daripada pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuan yang berumur antara 9(Darjah 3) hingga 16 tahun (Tingkatan 4) di Malaysia. Bagi tujuan kajian ini, lapan kumpulanumur iaitu 9 tahun, 10 tahun, 11 tahun, 12 tahun, 13 tahun, 14 tahun, 15 tahun dan 16 tahunbagi lelaki dan perempuan telah digunakan sebagai sampel kajian.

Bagi tujuan pemilihan sampel, negeri-negeri di Malaysia telah dikelompokkan kepada 5 Zonyang terdiri daripada beberapa buah negeri. Zon-zon tersebut adalah Zon Utara (Perlis,Kedah, Pulau Pinang, Perak), Zon Tengah (Selangor, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur,Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya), Zon Selatan (Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor), Zon Timur(Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang) dan Zon Malaysia Timur (Sabah, Sarawak, WilayahPersekutuan Labuan). Kelima-lima nama zon telah ditulis di atas kertas dan kertas tersebutdimasukkan ke dalam balang untuk di cabut. Cara yang sama juga telah dilakukan untukmenentukan zon, sekolah dan sampel.

Pemilihan zon, sekolah dan sampel dipilih secara rawak dengan menggunakan teknik‘fishbowl’. Undian pertama adalah menentukan zon dan zon yang terpilih adalah Zon Tengahyang terdiri daripada Selangor, Kuala Lumpur dan Putrajaya. Undian kedua adalahmenentukan negeri yang terpilih. Negeri yang terpilih adalah Kuala Lumpur yang terdiridaripada Zon Bangsar, Zon Pudu, Zon Keramat dan Zon Sentul.

Undian ketiga menentukan samada Zon Bangsar, Zon Pudu, Zon Keramat atau Zon Sentulyang akan terpilih. Zon yang terpilih adalah Zon Keramat. Cabutan terakhir adalah untukmenentukan sekolah yang terpilih iaitu sekolah yang berada dalam Zon Keramat.

Jumlah keseluruhan sampel yang digunakan untuk kajian ini adalah seramai 800 orang terdiridari 400 lelaki dan 400 perempuan. Terdapat lapan kumpulan umur dalam kajian ini. Setiapkumpulan umur mempunyai 100 orang sampel iaitu 50 lelaki dan 50 perempuan. Jumlahsampel adalah mencukupi sebagaimana yang disarankan oleh Krejcie dan Morgan (1970)yang menyatakan bahawa populasi yang melebihi 100 000 orang, sampel minima yang perluadalah sebanyak 384 orang.

Instrumen

Borang soal selidik diserahkan kepada pelajar untuk dilengkapkan bagi mengetahui maklumatperibadi pelajar. Alat pengukur tinggi berdiri (stadiometer) digunakan untuk mengukur tinggiberdiri pelajar.

Analisis

Jadual 1 menunjukkan analisis deskriptif bagi tumbesaran (tinggi) dan prestasi fizikal subjekkajian mengikut jantina dan kumpulan umur. Secara keseluruhan, tumbesaran (tinggi) bagipelajar lelaki dan perempuan menunjukkan peningkatan yang seiring dengan peningkatanumur mereka.

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Jadual 1 : Min Tinggi Pelajar Lelaki Dan Pelajar Perempuan

Umur(Tahun)

LELAKI (n=400) PEREPMPUAN (N=400)Min (cm) Sisihan

PiawaiMin Tinggi(cm)

SisihanPiawai

9 129.20 6.44 132.50 7.4610 138.30 5.99 136.20 7.0511 141.30 6.09 143.80 7.1312 147.80 8.23 149.70 5.1513 149.90 7.54 150.50 6.1814 159.60 8.25 153.20 5.8415 163.70 7.90 155.30 6.6816 165.70 7.17 155.90 4.97

Manakala, Rajah 1 menunjukkan graf min tinggi (cm) bagi setip kumpulan umur (tahun).Analisis menunjukkan peningkatan min tinggi adalah berkadar terus dengan peningkatanumur. Selain itu, min tinggi pelajar lelaki mengalami peningkatan yang pesat ketika berumurantara 13 tahun dan 14 tahun iaitu meningkat sebanyak 9.7 cm. Manakala, min tinggi pelajarperempuan menunjukkan peningkatan pesat antara umur 10 dan 11 tahun dengan peningkatansebanyak 7.6 cm.

Secara keseluruhannya, corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berkadar terus denganpeningkatan umur mereka. Pelajar lelaki didapati lebih tinggi daripada pelajar perempuan.Namun, pelajar perempuan lebih tinggi daripada pelajar lelaki ketika berumur di antara 11hingga 13 tahun. Selain itu, tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berlaku padaumur yang berbeza. Tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki berlaku antara umur 13 hingga 14tahun. Manakala, tumbesaran puncak pelajar perempuan berlaku antara 10 hingga 11 tahun.

Rajah 1: Graf Min Tinggi (cm) dengan Umur (Tahun)

48

Jadual 1 : Min Tinggi Pelajar Lelaki Dan Pelajar Perempuan

Umur(Tahun)

LELAKI (n=400) PEREPMPUAN (N=400)Min (cm) Sisihan

PiawaiMin Tinggi(cm)

SisihanPiawai

9 129.20 6.44 132.50 7.4610 138.30 5.99 136.20 7.0511 141.30 6.09 143.80 7.1312 147.80 8.23 149.70 5.1513 149.90 7.54 150.50 6.1814 159.60 8.25 153.20 5.8415 163.70 7.90 155.30 6.6816 165.70 7.17 155.90 4.97

Manakala, Rajah 1 menunjukkan graf min tinggi (cm) bagi setip kumpulan umur (tahun).Analisis menunjukkan peningkatan min tinggi adalah berkadar terus dengan peningkatanumur. Selain itu, min tinggi pelajar lelaki mengalami peningkatan yang pesat ketika berumurantara 13 tahun dan 14 tahun iaitu meningkat sebanyak 9.7 cm. Manakala, min tinggi pelajarperempuan menunjukkan peningkatan pesat antara umur 10 dan 11 tahun dengan peningkatansebanyak 7.6 cm.

Secara keseluruhannya, corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berkadar terus denganpeningkatan umur mereka. Pelajar lelaki didapati lebih tinggi daripada pelajar perempuan.Namun, pelajar perempuan lebih tinggi daripada pelajar lelaki ketika berumur di antara 11hingga 13 tahun. Selain itu, tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berlaku padaumur yang berbeza. Tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki berlaku antara umur 13 hingga 14tahun. Manakala, tumbesaran puncak pelajar perempuan berlaku antara 10 hingga 11 tahun.

Rajah 1: Graf Min Tinggi (cm) dengan Umur (Tahun)

48

Jadual 1 : Min Tinggi Pelajar Lelaki Dan Pelajar Perempuan

Umur(Tahun)

LELAKI (n=400) PEREPMPUAN (N=400)Min (cm) Sisihan

PiawaiMin Tinggi(cm)

SisihanPiawai

9 129.20 6.44 132.50 7.4610 138.30 5.99 136.20 7.0511 141.30 6.09 143.80 7.1312 147.80 8.23 149.70 5.1513 149.90 7.54 150.50 6.1814 159.60 8.25 153.20 5.8415 163.70 7.90 155.30 6.6816 165.70 7.17 155.90 4.97

Manakala, Rajah 1 menunjukkan graf min tinggi (cm) bagi setip kumpulan umur (tahun).Analisis menunjukkan peningkatan min tinggi adalah berkadar terus dengan peningkatanumur. Selain itu, min tinggi pelajar lelaki mengalami peningkatan yang pesat ketika berumurantara 13 tahun dan 14 tahun iaitu meningkat sebanyak 9.7 cm. Manakala, min tinggi pelajarperempuan menunjukkan peningkatan pesat antara umur 10 dan 11 tahun dengan peningkatansebanyak 7.6 cm.

Secara keseluruhannya, corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berkadar terus denganpeningkatan umur mereka. Pelajar lelaki didapati lebih tinggi daripada pelajar perempuan.Namun, pelajar perempuan lebih tinggi daripada pelajar lelaki ketika berumur di antara 11hingga 13 tahun. Selain itu, tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berlaku padaumur yang berbeza. Tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki berlaku antara umur 13 hingga 14tahun. Manakala, tumbesaran puncak pelajar perempuan berlaku antara 10 hingga 11 tahun.

Rajah 1: Graf Min Tinggi (cm) dengan Umur (Tahun)

49

Perbincangan

Pengukuran min tinggi pelajar lelaki dan perempuan digunakan bagi menentukan corak dantumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki dan perempuan. Melalui dapatan analisis deskriptif, didapatibahawa peningkatan min tinggi adalah berkadar terus dengan peningkatan umur. Oleh itu,corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuan adalah berkadar terus denganpeningkatan umur mereka. Dapatan ini selari dengan kajian yang telah dijalankan oleh Tanner(1989) dan Malina et al. (2004) yang menyatakan bahawa corak tumbesaran normal merujukkepada tumbesaran dari segi peningkatan ketinggian dan diikuti oleh berat badan yangbermula sejak lahir hingga dewasa.

Selain itu, min tinggi pelajar lelaki mengalami peningkatan yang pesat ketika berumur antara13 hingga 14 tahun. Manakala, min tinggi pelajar perempuan menunjukkan peningkatan pesatantara umur 10 hingga 11 tahun. Dapatan ini menunjukkan bahawa tumbesaran puncak (PHV)bagi pelajar lelaki dan perempuan berlaku semasa berumur diantara 13 hingga 14 tahun bagilelaki dan 10 hingga 11 tahun bagi perempuan. Dapatan ini sejajar dengan dapatan kajianyang telah dijalankan oleh Malina et al. (2004), yang melaporkan tumbesaran puncak kanak-kanak perempuan bermula ketika berumur 10 atau 11 tahun. Namun begitu, dapatan kajian initidak selari dengan dapatan Malina et al. (2004) yang menyatakan tumbesaran puncak lelakibermula ketika berumur 12 hingga 13 tahun. Dapatan kajian ini menunjukkan tumbesaranpuncak pelajar lelaki berlaku ketika berumur antara 13 hingga 14 tahun iaitu setahun lewatberbanding dapatan yang dilaporkan oleh Malina et al. (2004). Perbezaan ini mungkindisebabkan oleh faktor-faktor lain seperti perbezaan dari segi pemakanan, budaya,persekitaran dan cara hidup subjek bagi berbeza bagi kedua-dua kajian yang dijalankan.

Selain itu, analisis deskriptif menunjukkan pelajar perempuan lebih tinggi berbanding pelajarlelaki ketika berumur antara 10 hingga 13 tahun. Dapatan ini selari dengan kajian yangdijalankan oleh Orjan, Kristjan dan Bjorn (2005), yang menyatakan kanak-kanak perempuanlebih tinggi daripada lelaki ketika berumur 13 tahun, walaubagaimana pun lelaki lebih tinggidan lebih berat daripada perempuan ketika berumur 16 tahun. Perkara ini terjadi keranapelajar perempuan mengalami tumbesaran puncak (PHV) lebih cepat berbanding pelajarlelaki iaitu ketika berumur 10 hingga 11 tahun dan pelajar lelaki mengalami tumbesaranpuncak ketika berumur 13 hingga 14 tahun. Oleh yang demikian, pelajar perempuanmempunyai ketinggian melebihi pelajar lelaki semasa umur tersebut.

Walaupun pelajar perempuan lebih tinggi ketika berumur antara 10 hingga 13 tahun, namunpelajar lelaki akan lebih tinggi daripada pelajar perempuan bermula antara umur 13 tahun danseterusnya. Hal ini disebabkan tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki berlaku lewat (13 tahun)berbanding dengan pelajar perempuan (10 tahun). Oleh yang demikian, ketinggian pelajarlelaki akan melebihi pelajar perempuan yang mengalami tumbesaran puncak yang lebih awalberbanding pelajar lelaki.

Secara keseluruhannya, corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuan adalah seiringdengan peningkatan umur mereka. Namun begitu, masa berlakunya tumbesaran puncak bagipelajar lelaki dan perempuan adalah berbeza di mana pelajar lelaki mengalami tumbesaranpuncak ketika berumur 13 hingga 14 tahun, manakala pelajar perempuan mengalamitumbesaran puncak ketika berumur 10 tahun hingga 11 tahun. Selain itu, pelajar lelakididapati lebih tinggi daripada pelajar perempuan, namun ketika berumur 10 hingga 13 tahun

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pelajar perempuan didapati lebih tinggi daripada pelajar lelaki. Perkara ini disebabkan olehproses tumbesaran puncak yang berlaku semasa itu.

KesimpulanKajian ini mendapati corak tumbesaran pelajar lelaki dan perempuan adalah seiring denganpeningkatan umur mereka. Selain itu, tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuanberlaku pada umur yang berbeza. Tumbesaran puncak pelajar lelaki berlaku antara umur 13hingga 14 tahun. Manakala, tumbesaran puncak pelajar perempuan berlaku antara 10 hingga11 tahun.

Rujukan

Malina, R. M., Eisenmann, J. C., Cumming, S. P., Ribeiro, B., & Aroso, J. (2004).Maturity-associated variation in the growth and functional capacities of youthfootball (soccer) players 13-15 years. European Journal of Applied Physiology,91(5-6), 555-562.

Beunan, G., & Malina, R. M. (1996). Growth and biological maturation: Relevance toathletic performance. In O. Bar-Or. (Ed.). The child and adolescent athlete, (pp. 3 -24). Oxford: Blackwell Publication.

Chumlea, W. C. (1982), "Physical Growth in Adolescence," in Handbook ofDevelopmental Psychology, in B. Wolman, (ed.), pp. 471-485, Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,.

Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities.Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30, 607-610.

Leone, M., & Comtois, A. S. (2007). Validity and reliability of self-assessment of sexualmaturity in elite adolescent athletes. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness,47(3), 361-365.

O¨ rjan E., Kristjan O., Ekblom Bjo¨rn (2005), Physical performance and body mass index inSwedish children and adolescents. Scandavian Journal, 49(4):172-179

Pienaar A.E. & Viljoen A. (2010). Physical And Motor Ability, Anthropometrical AndGrowth Characteristics Of Body In The Northwest Provinve Of South Africa: A SportTalent Prespective. South African Journal For Research In Sport, Physical AndRecreation 32(2):71-93.

Tanner, J. M. (1981). A history of the study of human growth. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Tanner, J. M. (1989). Fetus into man: Physical growth from conception to maturity.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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CROSS-CULTURAL VALIDATION OF THE PERFORMANCE FAILUREAPPRAISAL INVENTORY-SHORT FORM: A MALAYSIAN ADAPTATION

Santhosh Ayathupady MohananSports Center, University of Malaya

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the cross-cultural validity of the shortversion of the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI; Conroy, 2001; Conroy,Willow, & Metzler, 2002) by analyzing reliability and validity of a Malay language (officiallanguage of Malaysia) translation. Three studies were performed to translate the inventoryand examine its factorial invariance and criterion validity. A total of 509 Malaysian athletesparticipating in various sports participated. In study 1, the hypothesized single factor modelwas examined performing a confirmatory factor analysis using Structural Equation Modelling(SEM). The criterion validity was examined by comparing fear of failure scores with thescores of achievement goals. Cronbach’s alpha values indicating internal consistencyreliability was high (α = .93). Altogether, it was concluded that the Malay adaptation of thePerformance Failure Appraisal Inventory-Short form (PFAI-SM) yielded reliability andvalidity that evidenced support for the cross-cultural usefulness of the scale.

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Cross-Cultural Validation of the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory-Short Form:A Malaysian Adaptation

Fear of failure is an intuitively familiar personality construct to performers acrossachievement domains (Conroy, 2003). Early achievement motivation researchers postulatedfear of failure as a motive (motive to avoid failure) while describing the dispositionaltendencies to behave in ways that reduce the possibility of experiencing failure (McClelland,Atkinson, Clark & Lowell, 19 53). Maintaining this approach, contemporary researchersconceptualized fear of failure as a motive to avoid failure in evaluative achievement contextsassociated with anticipatory shame (e.g., McGregor & Elliot, 2005). As a motive focusing onavoidance behaviour and negative emotions like shame, fear of failure has been examined inconnection with negative psychological aspects. In school for example, students with highfear of failure are likely to adopt avoidance achievement goals (Elliot & Church, 1997) whichmediate other negative effects (e.g., decreased subjective well-being, decreased intrinsicmotivation, low grades). In sport contexts, fear of failure has been associated with power-enhancing drug abuse (Anshel, 1991), source of stress (Gould, Horn & Spreeman, 1983), highlevels of stress and worry (Conroy, Willow, & Metzler, 2002), antisocial behaviour (Sagar,Boardley, Kavussanu, 2010), and perfectionism (Sagar & Stoeber, 2009).

Recently, Conroy and colleagues (Conroy, 2001, Conroy, et al., 2002;Conroy, 2004) proposed fear of failure as a multidimensional and hierarchical construct. Thisapproach is based on Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory of Emotions (Lazarus, 1991).According to this cognitive-motivational-relational approach (Conroy 2001, 2003, 2004,Conroy & Elliot, 2004), fear of failure is a dispositional tendency to experience apprehensionand anxiety in evaluative situations because individuals have learned that failure is associatedwith aversive consequences. Fear of failure occurs when beliefs or cognitive schemas aboutthese aversive consequences of failing are stimulated by situations in which failure ispossible. According to Conroy et al.’s model, fear of failure can be represented in ahierarchical structure with five lower-order factors representing beliefs in specific aversiveconsequences of failing, and a single higher-order factor representing a general fear of failure(Conroy, 2001; Conroy et al., 2002; Conroy, 2004). The five lower-order fears of failureinclude (a) fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment; (b) fear of devaluing one’s self-estimate; (c) fear of having an uncertain future; (d) fear of important others losing interest;and (e) fear of upsetting important others.

The original Performance Failure Inventory (PFAI; Conroy 2001; Conroy et al., 2002;Conroy, Metzler, & Hoffer, 2003) measures threat appraisals associated with fear of failure. Itmeasures the strength of individual’s beliefs that failure is connected with the aversiveconsequences as proposed by Conroy et al.’s (2002) model. The PFAI is the first fear offailure measure developed from meta-theory of emotions. Therefore, it examines fear offailure as a function of person-environment interaction as opposed to a trait or state likeconstruct; and proposes the individual nature of perceptions of failure, instead of assumingfear of failure to be the same for all performers (Conroy et al., 2002).

Conroy (2001) developed the original PFAI that comprised 89 items to measure tenappraisals related to fear of failure from a content analysis of in-depth interviews ofperformers’ perceptions of the consequences of failing and not succeeding (Conroy,Poczwardowski, & Henschen, 2001). Due to some conceptual and practical issues, Conroy

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and colleagues (2002) developed the revised version that comprised 25 items to measure fivedimensions (as mentioned earlier) of threat appraisals related to fear of failure. Conroy andcolleagues (2002) reported several statistical properties of the revised PFAI that suggested therevised PFAI as the best available measure of fear of failure. Model comparisons amongdifferent hypothesised models of the factor structure of the PFAI yielded reliable results. Forexample, confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory goodness of fit indices for the fivedimensions when tested as a five correlated factor model as a higher-order factor model whenthe five dimensions were subsumed.

As part of developing the 25-item PFAI, Conroy et al. (2002) developed a 5-itemshort-form measure of the higher-order fear of failure by identifying items with the largestsquared multiple correlations on each factor. A series of progressively more restrictiveinvariance analyses demonstrated that the 5-item short form satisfied the criteria for tightcross-validation, because parameter estimated in the calibration sample (i.e., item loadings,factor covariance and uniqueness) did not significantly reduce the model’s ability toreproduce the covariance matrix for the cross-validation sample (for details see, Conroy et al.,2002). Coefficient alpha for the five-item short form was .72 (Conroy et al., 2002). This shortform exhibited a similar pattern of correlations with external measures compared to the longform. General fear of failure measured by the 5-item measure was associated with high levelsof cognitive disruption, somatic anxiety, worry and overall sport anxiety and low levels ofoptimism (Conroy et al., 2002). Their study suggested the short form as an empiricallyvalidated measure of general fear of failure with 5 items representing five important domainsof fear of failure. Moreover, the short version is a good alternative for researchers who areinterested in the general fear of failure score; and it requires less time to administer which isof great importance in sport settings.

The PFAI and its five-item short version measure were developed in the United Statesof America based on American sport- specific populations. Different versions of PFAI havebeen demonstrated high level psychometric properties including temporal stability andfactorial validity in many other researches primarily on American populations (Conroy et al.,2002, 2003; Conroy & Elliot, 2004). Very few studies reported PFAI’s psychometricproperties outside USA (e.g., Sideridis and Kafetsion, 2008). Considering thesecircumstances, Sagar & Jowett (2010) conducted a study to generalize the psychometricproperties of the PFAI to British sport participants. As they state, the reasons for such avalidation is the cultural difference between the USA and the UK, in spite of the similaritiesin terms of individualistic orientation, language and socio-economic profiles. According toSagar and Jowett (2010), the UK and the US differ in educational systems, family values, andwork attitudes, all of which are aspects that can influence how one appraises the threat offailure in achievement or evaluative situations. Therefore, research is needed to establish thedegree to which threat appraisals in sport settings as measured by the PFAI are capturing thesame constructs and the same levels in the UK with a British sample of sport participants.Such notions related to the testing of cross cultural validity of the PFAI logically support astudy to establish the validity of the PFAI with a sample of sport participants from aculturally, linguistically and socio-economically different country like Malaysia. A culturewith collectivistic orientation implies that individuals belong to collectives as opposed to beindependent and are motivated by the goals of the collectives as opposed to by their ownpreferences and needs (Triandis, 1995). Malaysia, a south-east Asian country holds acollectivistic orientation as opposed to the US which carries strong individualistic orientation.Western individualistic and Eastern collective cultures appear to differently promote approachand avoidance motivational processes (Elliot, Chirkov, Kim, & Sheldon, 2001). In thesocialisation process in the East, the importance of not making mistakes for establishing a

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positive self is emphasized whereas in the West, a positive self is developed by doing one’sbest or by striving to win (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). Therefore, fear offailure may be thought to have contextual differences. Moreover, language socio-economicprofiles of these countries are different. Bahasa Melayu (Malay) is the national language ofMalaysia whereas the US is an English speaking country where the original PFAI has beendeveloped in English. In short, these differences presuppose a need for the cross culturalvalidation of the Malay version of the PFAI to be employed in research practice withMalaysian athletes. On shortening the original PFAI to a 25-item measure, Conroy et al.(2002) were concerned with the length of the measure and they mentioned that thepractitioners and researchers alike might be more inclined to use this measure if a shorterversion could be developed without sacrificing the psychometric quality of scores. This is thereason why they alternatively provided a 5-item short version along with the 25-item measure.This study aims to develop the Malay adaptation of the 5-item short version of the PFAIupholding the advantages of a short measure with sound psychometric properties.

In general, the present study addresses some practical issues pertaining to fear offailure research. Firstly, it tries to promote fear of failure research in non-English speakingathletic populations. Availability and applicability of valid and reliable measures is aprerequisite in any area of research. Presently, there is no instrument in Malay languagemeasuring fear of failure based on a meta-theory of emotions which examines fear of failureas a function of person-environment interaction and appraisals of failure. Malay language is amember of the Western branch of the Austronesian language family, spoken as a nativelanguage by more than 33,000,000 persons distributed over the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra,Borneo, and the numerous smaller island of the areas and widely used in Indonesia as asecond language (Malay Language; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010). The Malay language isthe official language of Malaysia and Brunei; one of the official languages of Singapore; andspoken in Indonesia as a normative form called Bahasa Indonesia. We hope this study willmeet the need of a Malay version of the short-form of the PFAI.

Three studies were conducted on three different samples. Study one encompassed thequestionnaire translation and pilot testing. In the second study, confirmatory factor analysiswas performed with structural equation modelling for testing the hypothesised single factorstructure. In addition, internal consistency reliability of the measure was estimated. In thethird study, the external validity of the new Malay version of the PFAI 5-item measure wasexamined.

Study1: Questionnaire translation and pilot testing

Following the back-translation technique (Brislin, 1986), this validation stage of theinstrument proposed a preliminary Malay version of the 5-item short form of the PFAI(Conroy et al., 2003). To this end, the first translator who was a Malaysian sport scientisttranslated the original English anchor version into Bahasa Melayu (Malay language; the targetlanguage). This version was then back-translated into English (the source language) byanother translator. Both English versions were examined for global similarity from a semanticpoint of view. The Malay version proved significant equivalence with the original version.Responses to the items were made on a scale ranging from do not believe at all (- 2) to believe100% of the time (+ 2).

The translated questionnaire was scrutinised with a pilot testing. For pilot testing, thequestionnaire was administered to 10 Malaysian athletes (5 male and 5 female; Mage = 21.13,

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SD = 0.95) followed by individual interviews for 10 minutes about various aspects of theinstrument. The interview questions were adapted from a French translation study on athletes’self-esteem (Bardel, Fontayne, & Colombel, 2008). The interview included the followingquestions: “Does the question seem clear to you?”, “How do you interpret this item?”, “Whatdoes it mean for you?” and “What do you think is assessed by the questionnaire?”. Issuesrelated to vagueness in terms of sentence structure, use of words and semantics were ruled outbased on the interview. The new inventory will be called the Performance Failure AppraisalInventory-Short form, Malay (PFAI-SM). For a complete list of translated items and itscorresponding original items, see Table1.

Study 2: Confirmatory Factor analysis and internal consistency

The objective of study 2 was to examine the factorial structure and internal consistencyreliability of the PFAI-SM. First, the factor structure of the PFAI-SM was tested usingconfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) employing structural equation modelling. Second,reliability was estimated by using the traditional coefficient alpha (Cronbach, 1984).

Method

Participants

To test the factorial structure of the PFAI-SM, a sample of 351 athletes from various parts ofMalaysia were recruited (184 men and 167 women) ranged in age from 18 to 39 years (Mage =23.82, SD = 5.10). The sample comprised of athletes participating in various disciplines (e.g.,athletics, archery, badminton, volleyball, rugby, tennis). All participants practiced competitivesport for several years at regional or nation level. On an average, they participated in theirsport for 6.21 years (SD = 4.22).

Procedure and measures

Some of the participants were contacted with the help of respective sport associations or theircoaches while some of them were contacted directly. Participation in the study was voluntaryand all participants provided consent to participate. The participants were assured theconfidentiality of the information provided by them. They were also informed that theinformation would be used only for research purpose.

The PFAI-SM consists of 5 items scaled on a Likert 5-point scale. The PFAI-SMprovided scores for general fear of failure. Sample items were: “Bila saya kalah, saya risaukemungkinan saya kurang berbakat” and “Bila saya kalah, rancangan masa depan saya akanterganggu”. Participants were asked to focus on their thoughts and feelings about their sportwhen responding to the questions. Responses were made on a scale ranging from do notbelieve at all (- 2) to believe 100% of the time (+ 2). See appendix for a complete version ofthe PFAI-SM.

Data analysis

To conduct confirmatory factor analysis with Structural Equation Modeling, AMOS 18software was used. The model fit comparisons were performed to estimate the best fit of thehypothesized single factor model. Internal consistency indices by Cronbach’s alpha(Cronbach, 1984) of the PFAI-SM were estimated using PASW 18 (formerly called SPSS).

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Results and Discussion

Two models were compared for goodness of fit using AMOS 18 software. Maximumlikelihood estimates were derived from covariance matrices, and pair-wise deletion wasperformed for missing data. There were no missing values. All of the items had skewness andkurtosis values between +1 and -1 and the distribution of the data showed acceptablemultivariate normality (Mardia’s coefficient was 1.09 and the critical ratio was 1.22). Sincethe chi-square test being sensitive to sample size, other fit indices were considered whenmaking comparisons to the baseline model. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation(RMSEA) was considered as a measure of absolute fit and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI)and Tucker_Lewis Index (TLI) as indices of incremental fit. A good fitting model to beindicated by values close to or greater than .95 for the CFI and TLI, and values of or less than.06 for RMSEA (Hu & Bentler, 1995). However, Browne & Cudeck, 1989 have used adifferent criterion (mediocre fit, .08 -.1) as the RMSEA is sensitive to the number ofparameters.

Fig.1. Confirmatory factor analysis of the PFAI-SM items (standardized coefficients)

The fit indices from the CFA indicated a very close fit of the proposed model to thedata, χ2 (df = 5, N = 351) = 17.158, p = .004; CFI = .991, TLI = .982, RMSEA = .083.Therefore, the default model was examined for further modifications suggested by thesoftware. These modifications were tested in model A. Thus, a covariance was detectedbetween the error variances of the first and second items. The results indicated that model Afits the data pretty well improving all the indices, χ2 (df = 5, N = 351) = 7.323, p = .120; CFI= .998, TLI = .994, RMSEA = .049. There was a notable reduction in chi-square (Δ χ2 =9.835) and RMSEA (Δ = .034). An examination of Item 1, “When I am failing, I am afraidthat I might not have enough talent” and item 2, “When I am failing, it upsets my “plan” forthe future,” reveals that these items share common aspects. Appraisals of failure related to

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lack of talent and control could be assumed to influence factors pertaining to future planning.The factor loadings and error variances of the items are presented in Fig.1. All of the itemsshowed relatively strong loadings that ranged from .81to .87 (.85 on average), and satisfactoryerror variance. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (α ) for the scale was = .93.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for PFAI-SM items

Scale Items M SD

1 Bila saya kalah, saya risau kemungkinan saya kurangberbakat.

(When I am failing, I am afraid that I might not haveenough talent)

-.28 1.13

2 Bila saya kalah, rancangan masa depan saya akanterganggu.

(When I am failing, it upsets my “plan” for the futur.)

-.38 1.25

3 Bila saya tidak berjaya, orang akan kurang berminatterhadap saya

(When I am not succeeding, people are less interested inme)

-.22 1.21

4 Bila saya kalah, pihak lain akan kecewa.

(When I am failing, important others (people) aredisappointed)

-.09 1.19

5 Bila saya kalah, saya risau pendapat pihak lain terhadapsaya.

(When I am failing, I worry about what others think aboutme)

-.15 1.17

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Table 2 The fit indices for the CFA models

Fit index Single-factor modelModel A (error variances of item 1and item 2 correlated)

χ2 17.158 7.323

CFI .991 .998

TLI .982 .994

RMSEA .083 .049

Model comparison

Single-factor model vs. Model A ∆χ2 (4) = 9.835, p< .05

Study 3: External validity

The objective of study 3 was to investigate the external validity of the PFAI-SM. To this end,a correlation analysis was performed in which fear of failure scores were correlated withachievement goal scores. Drawing from the review of literature on fear of failure, it washypothesized that fear of failure would be positively correlated to Performance-avoidance(PAv) achievement goals and Mastery-avoidance (MAv) achievement goals.

Method

Participants

Altogether 158 athletes (83 men and 75 women; M age = 24.12, SD = 5.23) participating invarious sports (e.g., badminton, cycling, football) composed the sample. Their age rangedfrom 18 to 38 years. On average, they were participating in their sport for 6.36 years (SD =4.31).

Procedure and Measures

With the support of coaches and sport associations the participants were contacted. Some ofthem were approached directly. Participation was voluntary and all participants providedconsent to participate. Confidentiality of the information was assured to the participants.

The Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport (AGQ-S; Conroy et al., 2003) wasused to assess achievement goals. This 12-item measure provides scores for Mastery-approach goals, Mastery-avoidance, Performance-approach and Performance-avoidancegoals. However, for the present purpose only two subscales (Mastery-avoidance andPerformance-avoidance) of the measure were considered. Sample items included “I ’m oftenconcerned that I may not perform as well as I can perform” (MAv), and “My goal is to avoidperforming worse than everyone else” (PAv). Participants were asked to focus on theirthoughts and feelings about their sport when responding to the questions. Responses weremade on a scale ranging from not at all true of me ( - 3) to very true of me ( + 3). AGQ-S

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scores have demonstrated evidence of longitudinal factorial invariance, differential stability,external validity, and latent mean stability (AGQ-S; Conroy et al., 2003).

The newly developed PFAI-SM was administered to assess the general fear of failureof the athletes. See Study2 for details of scoring and administration.

Results and Discussion

External validity of the PFAI-SM was established by correlating the fear of failure scores withMAv and PAv scores. The strongest predictor of achievement goals available in the literatureis fear of failure (Conroy, 2001; Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & McGregor, 1999, 2001;Elliot & Sheldon, 1997; Conroy & Elliot, 2004 ; Nein & Duda, 2008). Research has shownthat fear of failure positively predicts MAv, and PAv goals (Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot &McGregor, 1999, 2001; Nein & Duda, 2008). It is logical to assume that the avoidance goalsare related to fear of failure because of the negative valence (avoidance) inherent in thesegoals. Therefore, we examined the expected positive correlation between fear of failure scoresand avoidance goals; namely, PAv and MAv. This study supported the hypothesizedassociations between achievement goals and fear of failure. The fear of failure scores werepositively and significantly correlated with PAv (r = .69, p < .01), and MAv scores (r = .64, p< .01). These results are in direct accord with the results of an earlier study (Nein & Duda2008).

General Discussion

The objective of the study was to examine cross-cultural usefulness of the PFAI (Conroy,2001; Conroy et al., 2002) by analyzing the factor validity, external validity and internalconsistency of its Malay translation. The short version of the original PFAI was used to assessgeneral fear of failure of athletes.

As the first study followed the best practice, that is back-translation, in translation ofthe questionnaire for cross-cultural research (Brislin, 1986). Semantic equivalence betweenthe original version and the Malay version was confirmed by following this procedure.Further concerns for the conceptual vagueness have been ruled out by conducting apreliminary administration and direct interviews with the respondents. The second studyestablished the single factorial structure of the general fear of failure. We may conclude fromthis confirmatory factor and reliability analysis that the PFAI-SM shows satisfactory constructvalidity.

Considering the third study results, there is substantial evidence that the PFAI-SM hasgood external validity. The three studies presented have a common aim of establishing aMalay version of the Short form of the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI;Conroy, 2001; Conroy et al., 2002). The results of these studies provide strong support for theinternal and external construct validity of the PFAI-SM. The PFAI-SM would be useful inresearches on general fear of failure on Malaysian athletic population. Moreover thisquestionnaire would be suitable in practice as it takes very short time to administer which isof great significance in the field of competitive sport. Notwithstanding the soundpsychometric properties of the PFAI-SM, we recommend further research to confirm theresults of the present study.

Summary and conclusion

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the cross-cultural validity of the shortform of the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI; Conroy, 2001; Conroy, et al.,

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2002) by analyzing reliability and validity of a Malay translation. The expected single factormodel of the general fear of failure was found to be robust. With respect to external validity,fear of failure scores were positively related to PAv and MAv goals. Based on these findings,we conclude that scores on the PFAI-SM exhibited strong psychometric properties including,factorial validity, internal consistency and external validity. The PFAI-SM would be anappropriate instrument for research on fear of failure in Malay-speaking societies and relatedcross-cultural studies.

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APPENDIX

Inventori Penilaian Kegalalan Prestasi – borang pendek

Arahan: Baca setiap pernyataan di bawah dan fikirkan berapa kerapkah anda percaya

setiapnya benar dalam domain sukan anda (cth sukan, akademik). Gunakan skala penilaian di

bawah untuk menunjukkan betapa kepercayaan setiap pernyataan berkait dengan anda.

+ 2 +1 0 -1 -2

Tidak percaya sama sekali 50% masa percaya 100% percaya

__________1. Bila saya kalah, saya risau kemungkinan saya kurang berbakat.

__________2. Bila saya kalah, rancangan masa depan saya akan terganggu.

__________3. Bila saya tidak berjaya, orang akan kurang berminat terhadap saya

__________4. Bila saya kalah, pihak lain akan kecewa.

__________5. Bila saya kalah, saya risau pendapat pihak lain terhadap saya.

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