Psychometric characteristics of Latvian team sports athletes

INTRODUCTION:
The psychological skills of athletes are widely studied, especially in high performance sports. It highlights significant psychometric issues in the athlete's preparation and allows corrections to be made in the training process. Psychological skills are crucial to the success and achievement of athletes. The aim of this study was: to assess the applicability of PSIS-R5 in the Latvian team sports environment, examining the relationship between athletes' achievement levels and psychological skills, and to provide recommendations to coaches for improving the training process.
METHODS:
A total of 254 Latvian team sports athletes aged between 18 to 35 completed the PSIS-R5 inventory to assess their psychological skills. Participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. Prior to completing the questionnaire, participants provided written informed consent, ensuring they were aware of the study’s purpose and the intended use of their data. The PSIS-R5 includes 45 items distributed across six scales: Anxiety control, Concentration, Confidence, Mental preparation, Motivation, and Team emphasis The PSIS-R5 was re-translated into Latvian language (PSIS-R5-L) using forward-backward translation. The levels of athletes' achievements were evaluated according to the national and international performance statistics of the specific team sport (hockey (n=73), basketball (n=52), floorball (n=36), volleyball (n=35), football (n=33), handball (n=25)). The data collected was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS v.28.0.0) and JASP 0.18.3.0.
RESULTS:
The obtained data reveal that there are significant differences in self-confidence between elite and pre-elite athletes, suggesting that elite athletes demonstrate a higher level of self-confidence. Additionally, statistically significant differences in self-confidence were found between pre-elite and amateur athletes, indicating that pre-elite athletes exhibit lower self-confidence than amateur athletes. The motivation scale, based on average scores, shows a descending order from the elite to the pre-elite , with amateurs group scoring the lowest. These results suggest that athletes with higher levels of achievement exhibit higher motivation in sports. On the team emphasis scale, no statistically significant differences were detected among athletes’ achievement groups, indicating comparable team orientation across all groups. For the visualization scale, statistically significant differences were found only between the elite and amateur groups, suggesting that elite athletes possess stronger visualization skills than amateurs.
CONCLUSION:
These findings align with previous studies, supporting the fact that the higher achievement levels are associated with stronger psychological skills. The results indicate that scores on various scales are not particularly high or close to maximum levels, highlighting the necessity of integrating targeted psychological skills training into athletes’ development programs.