The Relationship Between Sport Participation, Perceived Athletic Competence and Performance in University Sprinters

Abstract

Purpose: There is a need for research that investigates confidence, performance, and previous sports involvement among particular sports such as in track and field sprinters. The objective of this study was to investigate relations between previous sport participation, perceived athletic competence, and performance results in university track and field sprinters. Methods: The perceived athletic competence scale and previous sport participation questionnaire were implemented in the form of an online survey. The best performance times were collected from an online results database. All of the participants were enrolled in university and were members of their respective school’s track and field team. Measures of variability and descriptive statistics were calculated, and Analysis of Variance and t-tests were implemented to analyze potential differences amongst the variables of this study. Results: There were a total of 42 university track and field sprinters between the age of 18 and 23. The highest participated sports (sum) were track and field sprints (624), soccer (234), hockey (189), and basketball (164). A repeated measure ANOVA revealed a significant decrease in sports participation across all and between each of the three age groups (ages 8 to 13, 14 to 17, and 18+). Sports participation was the highest in the 8 to 13 age group. A bivariate correlation and linear regression analyses showed statistical insignificance between sport participation and perceived athletic competence. There was a low positive, but not statistically significant relationship from the 8 to 13 age group. Lastly, there was a statistically non-significant positive correlation for the first age (8 to 13) group and sprint performance times. Conclusion: The findings of the study contribute to the areas of sport participation, sport specialization, and athlete development by confirming what is already presently known while adding new support for track and field sprinting as a late specialization sport and the need for further analysis and investigation in the future with a more diverse sample and a larger sample size.