Performance anxiety : athlete's experience in sports

Abstract

My aim is to examine the performance anxiety that players in the Maltese National Futsal Team experience when facing foreign teams. My research aim is to look at the players' 'perspective on this experienced anxiety and how, in their opinion, this may affect their performance as they engage in Futsal' with special emphasis on the games they play with foreign teams. My interest in the issue stems from both my childhood experience with anxiety as well as my observations of the continuous losses experienced by the Maltese Futsal team in international games. A Qualitative approach has been used to examine the research question, where four participants participated in a one in-depth semi-structured interview each, field observations and an expert interview with the Team Coach was also conducted Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the emergent themes. The resultant super-ordinate themes were Intrapsychic Factors, Relational Factors and Contextual Factors. A link was noted between the three themes but could not be further established due to the nature of the research undertaken which was not quantitative. This allowed for the research question to take fruition by indicating that from the experience of Futsal players, Futsal is not only about performance but is influenced by the various individual contexts of each player.