Brustad (1988) focused on the influence of intrapersonal and socialization

factors for our youth. The study was done to examine positive and negative affect
experienced by youth athletes during competition season. The study was grounded
within Harters theory of competence motivation (individuals possess an inherent
desire to demonstrate personal competence in specific areas of achievement).
Brustad (1988) explains that when our youth are feeling positive then they begin to
take pride in the sport, have a spirit of enjoyment, and a perception of success
which ultimately makes our youth want to continue to play the sport. Contrary,
when negative feelings (not taking pride in the sport, not enjoying the sport, but
playing because someone else made them and a perception of being a loser)
emerge then the expression and the youth competence drive will begin to diminish.
There were 207 participants (100 females and 107 males) and all participants
came from an agency-sponsored youth basketball league. The ages ranged from 913 years of age. The mean was 10.8 and the Standard Deviation was 1.1. The study
involved measuring the measures of affect, measure of intrapersonal perceptions,
socialization measures, assessing sources of worry, and the measure of individual
and team ability. The subjects completed all measures prior to a team practice
session during the last month of the league season.
While measuring the level of affect, competitive trait anxiety (CTA) and
enjoyment represented possible affected outcomes for young athletes. In order to
test the competitive trait anxiety (CTA) levels in the players the Childrens Form of
Martens Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) was used. This Sport Competition
Anxiety Test (SCAT) is used to test if the athlete views competitive situations as
threatening. In order to measure the level of enjoyment the players were asked two
questions: How much do you like playing basketball for this team and How much
have you enjoyed playing basketball this season? The players were given five
items to choose from which consisted of: very much to not at all.
The next measure consisted of Intrapersonal Perceptions. During this
measurement the kids had to describe what kind of person they are like. For
instance, if they felt like they were great at sports of if they werent great at sports
at all. The children then had to proceed to identify what kind of child they were by
choosing very true or sort of true. Self-esteem was also assessed to see what
the child felt their self-worth was. The participants were asked if they like difficult
basketball skills because it challenged them or if they didnt like difficult basketball
skills because it consisted of them working too hard. They were allowed to answer
using very true or sort of true.
Socialization was measured in order to figure out if the players enjoyed
playing basketball or if their parents put pressure on them to participate and
succeed. The athletes were asked , do you parents get upset when you dont play
well and do your parents think you should be a lot better in basketball then you
currently are? They were given the answer choices of very true to not true.

Measures assessing worrying were also measured to try to find a correclation

with the high level of CTA. It was opinionated that maybe athletes that worry about
letting the team down, not performing to ones ability level, making mistakes for the
team, and losing the game for the team could consist of high levels of CTA
(competitive trait anxiety). The althese were given the opportunity to answer with
the choices from very true to not true.
Competitive trait anxiety (CTA) and enjoyment were used as dependent
variables for this study. Perceived basketball competence, self-esteem, motivational
orientation, perceived parental pressure, actual basketball ability, and team win/loss
percentage were used as independent variables. Nonetheless, during this study the
author decided to use worry as a resource to measure low-medium, and high levels
of CTA. The data was done separately from the male and female athletes.
A multiple regression analysis was conducted to assess the relationship
between the six predictor variables and the two dependent variables. This analysis
was conducted for boys and girls separately. The boys obtained a significant
multivariate (having more than one variable) effect found for the influence of the
predictor variables on enjoyment and anxiety, F(2,98) =6.34. The F stands for the
F-test that was done to find the value 6.34. The P value was less than .001. This
number can also be found using the tables provided in class. Also the girls had a
relationship that existed as well with the variables used, F(2, 91) =3.31 with a pvalue of <0.001.This information can be found in Chapter 12 for more in depth
understanding and configurations.
This study was conducted to see the similarities and differences that boys
and girls perceived in competitive SPORTS. The hypothesis that children with higher
levels of perceived basketball competence would experience greater season long
enjoyment and lower CTA was not supported by these results.