Comparative Analysis of Mental Toughness among Medallist and Non-Medallist University Archery Players

Abstract

The well-documented relationship between sport performance and psychological factors shall, however, now be emphasized: While physical ability and technical skill associate high-performance athletes with each other, the question of how they deliver under pressure is defined by their psychological make-up. The current study evaluated and compared mental toughness between medal winning (n=54) university archery players with non-medallists (n=32) on four domains of Commitment/Motivation, Concentration/Focus, Control Under Pressure and Confidence/Self-Belief measured by The Mental Toughness Scale. Purposive sampling was conducted for selecting a total of forty archers (20 medallists and 20 non medals) in the age category of 18-25 years. A modified version of the Alan Heary Mental Toughness Test served to assess mental toughness through a 24-item questionnaire. Independent-samples t-tests revealed significant differences between groups for all four components of well-being and the global composite score (p < 0.001). As per the scoring system employed, Medallists earned a lower overall mean score (M = 4.45, SD = 1.61) than non-medallists (M = 14.20, SD = 2.42), which provides greater evidence for mental toughness compared to their mates who did not achieve medals. These findings provide the first evidence that commitment, attentional control, pressure management and self-belief are potential resilience factors directly linked to competitive performance in university-level archery.