Self-regulation skills and stress management during early sportschool-career
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/PPS.2025.28.67572Keywords
Self-regulation skills, stress management, sportschool, careerAbstract
Introduction
A career at an elite sports school brings significant changes to the athletes' everyday lives, making self-competence a key factor in successfully adapting to this new environment. The development of new strategies for stress management could be a key factor in achieving success.
Purpose
The aim of this study is to examine the development of self-regulation skills in the first years from talent identification and initial commitment to elite sports schools to the second year of the sports school career. The purpose of this examination is to derive possible consequences that positively influence the career path.
Materials and methods
A total of 130 pupils aged between 10 and 13 years old (mean age = 11.67 years, SD = 1.44 years) were surveyed about their self-competence using the SSI-K3 (Kuhl & Fuhrmann, 2004) at three different time points in order to link changes in skills to different phases of their school career.
Results
Correlation analysis demonstrated a negative relationship between high levels of perceived negative stress and volition (r = -0.372, p < 0.001) and self-access (r = -0.669, p < 0.001). The findings indicate a negative correlation between the two stress subcategories (stress load and threat) and volitional initiation (r = -0.305 and r = -0.381, p < 0.001) and self-access (r = -0.658 and r = -0.581, p < 0.001). Longitudinal analysis demonstrated that stress-related items increased at t1 and then decreased significantly at t2 (p = .022).
Conclusion:
The results demonstrate that changes to the conditions of a sports school career have a significant impact on self-competencies. These can be adapted to suit individual athletes, thereby reducing stress and increasing self-efficacy by giving them more influence over their own careers.
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