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THE DEPENDENCE OF LATVIAN HANDBALL PLAYERS' EFFECTIVENESS IN COMPETITIONS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL INDICATORS
Zermena Vazne, Janis Zidens, Juris Grants, Biruta Svagzdiene

ABSTRACT. With the increase of mental stress in competitions and the growth of general level of athlete technical and tactical preparedness and physical condition, psychological aspects are more and more emphasised in winning a game in team sports. The research aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of psychological factors on the place and goals achieved in competitions by handball team. The research methods included: GEQ test, CSAI-2, documental material analysis and mathematical statistics. The research subjects were Latvian handball male players who participated in the Latvia Handball Championship 2015 (n=179). Three hypotheses were selected in this research: the first, there are correlations between the team's cohesion scales, self-confidence, the place and the number of goals achieved by the team; the second, the place of the team in competitions is affected by self-confidence and the indicators of the team cohesion scale content; the third, the number of goals achieved by the team in competitions is affected by self-confidence as well as the indicators of the team cohesion scale content. The place won by the team weakly correlates with two cohesion scales of the team ATG-T, GI-T and self-confidence. The number of goals correlates weakly with GI-T and self-confidence. In the case of the games won there is a positive correlation between the three cohesion scales of the team and the indicators of self-confidence (p<0.05). Linear regression models are not appropriate to describe the researched effect of psychological variables on the place won in the competitions (p>0.05). In our research, the effect of psychological factors on the number of goals shot by the team varies from 19.1% (if the model includes only self-confidence indicators) up to 59.7% (if the model includes four researched psychological factors: three team cohesion scales and self-confidence). Applying the backward regression method, the ATG-S scale was eliminated from the model. Only the first and the third hypotheses proved to be true (p<0.05).

KEYWORDS:  cohesion, self-confidence, sport, correlation and regression analysis, Latvia.

JEL classification:  M14, Z2, Z29.