Psychological Skills of Greek Basketball Players

George Karamousalidis, Evangelos Bebetsos, & Konstantinos Laparidis

Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Hellas

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the differences of the psychometric properties of the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (Smith et al., 1995), among Greek basketball athletes, (N=239, M=21.7 yrs, SD=4.175 ). All seven items of the questionnaire had acceptable internal consistency (Gronbah’s alpha was fluctuated between .61 - .76). The MANOVA analysis showed that: a) athletes with greater athletic experience scored higher on the psychological skills in relation with the athletes of lesser athletic experience p<.001, b) athletes who practiced more on a weekly basis scored higher on the psychological skills in com- parison with those who practiced less, p<.001, c) also male athletes scored higher in comparison with the female ones p<.001, and finally, d) athletes of national categories showed greater development of their psychological skills in relation with athletes of local categories p<.001. In conclusion, the results showed that ACSI-28 is a reliable instrument for the registration of the psychometric properties of Greek basketball athletes.

Keywords: psychological skills, gender, categories, basketball.