THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MENTAL TOUGHNESS MEASURE FOR TAEKWONDO ATHLETES

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to construct a mental toughness measure for taekwondo athletes and to contrast the mental toughness level for taekwondo athletes between high performance level, middle performance level and low performance level. The 120 samples were selected from taekwondo athletes who participated in the 38^th University Games 2011 using a purposive random sampling method. The instrument was the mental toughness measure for taekwondo athletes which was created and developed by the researcher and verified by experts in sports psychology and taekwondo coaches. Data then was analyzed by using the index of item objective congruence for the construct validity and Cronbach’s alpha reliability measure for the consistency of the mental toughness measure for taekwondo athletes. Then ANOVA was administered to contrast the mental toughness measure for taekwondo athletes between high performance level, middle performance level and low performance level with the 0.05 level of significance.

             The mental toughness measure for taekwondo athletes were composed of 36 items which showed the construct validity.  The total for Cranbach’s alpha reliability measure was 0.97. The 6 elements of Cranbach’s alpha reliability measure resulted in concentration of 1.00, commitment of 0.80, self-confidence of 0.95, negative energy of 0.80, positive energy of 0.95 and adversity quotient of 0.75, all at a 0.05 significant level. The contrast between high performance level, middle performance level and low performance level showed that there was a significance deference of 0.05. Moreover the high performance level group showed  the highest mental toughness, higher than middle performance level and low performance level, respectively.

(J. Sports Sci. Technol 2011; 11 (2): 260–273)

Key words: Measurement, Mental Toughness, taekwondo athletes