Anxiety and mental toughness between high and low achiever table tennis players: A comparative study

The study was initiated with a purposeto compare anxiety and mental toughness between the high achievers and low achievers men table tennis players of MP. The study was conducted on 64 male table tennis players (48 preliminary round losing players and 16 pre-quarterfinalists) [N=64]who had participated in MP State Table Tennis Championship-2016 held at Lakshmibai Institute of Physical Education, Gwalior. The subject for the study were further categorized in two groups according to their performance level at the competition i.e. High achiever (players who had reached to pre-quarterfinals) and Low achiever (players who had lost in preliminary rounds). Sports Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT)and Psychological Performance Inventory (PPI) developed by Rainer Martens (1990) and James E. (1996) respectively were administered to all the subjects, for the collection of data. For data analysis, independent‘t’ test was employed at a level of significance of.05. The findings of the study revealed that the calculated t-value of SCAT scores was|-2.771| which was greater than tabulated t-value 1.99. Similarly, the calculated t-value of only self confidence (=5.12) variable in PPI was more than the tabulated t-value(=1.99). The result of the study concluded that there was significant difference in anxiety as well as in one of the parameter of mental toughness, i.e. Self Confidence, among the high achiever and low achiever table tennis players.