Effects Of Self-talk On Passing Self-efficacy And Performance In Ethiopian Soccer Players

Self-talk is the source of passing self-efficacy and has considered as a strategy to regulate cognition,emotions,behavior,and performance.Despite the recognition of such a position one aspect of human cognition and functioning that has neglected in the sports literature is the effect of what people talk to themselves in performance.Most importantly,the absence of studies on self-talk and pass self-efficacy,and their importance in the improvement of performance lacks at large.Accordingly,based on the pass self-efficacy(Bandura,1997)and self-talk(Hardy et al,2009)models the study examined the effects of motivational and instructional self-talk on passing self-efficacy and performance in novice and expert soccer players.The study addressed mainly four objectives: first it was examined the effects of motivational and instructional self-talk,and play level on passing self-efficacy and performance.Second it was examined the effects of play level on passing self-efficacy and performance.Third it was examined the effects of self-talk on passing self-efficacy and performance,and at last it was examined the mediating role of passing self-efficacy between self-talk and performance.Two between-groups factors of 3(MST,IST,and CG)X 2 play levels experimental design was employed.Total of 45 clubs and 45 youth soccer camps,players were sampled for the study.The experiment was conducted in four phases: test protocol familiarity tryout phase,base line assessment phase,self-talk intervention training phase,and the post intervention assessment phase.The self-talk cue “I Can” by MST group and the phrase “Ready,target,pass” by IST group were practiced for 2 weeks to compare the effects against the traditional soccer training completed by CG.The statistical techniques ANOVA were employed to analyze data collected.The study found 1)main effect of self-talk on passing self-efficacy is significant;the main effect of play level on passing selfefficacy not significant;post hoc test found significant difference between MST and CG and between IST and CG;the interaction effect of self-talk and play level on passing self-efficacy is significant;simple effect of play level on MST was significant.2)The main effect of play level on performance found significant,the main effect of self-talk on performance is significant,post hoc test found significant difference between MST and CG and between IST and CG;the interaction effect of self-talk and play level on performance is significant;simple effect of play level on MST and IST was significant 3)The relationship between self-talk and passing self-efficacy,and self-talk and performance not found significant;Self-efficacy not mediated between self-talk and performance.It could be concluded that incorporating self-talk strategy in to training program,either in its motivational or instructional forms improved self-belief and performance among players compared to traditional soccer training solely rely on feedback on knowledge of performance and knowledge of results alone.The finding of this study supports the notion that self-talk influence athlete?s task specific confidence and performance.Long term study that considers individually chosen self-talk cues and personal use preference is workable direction to be addressed.