Level of self confidence among Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Athletes Parnabas Vincent A.*, Mahamood Yahaya**, Parnabas Julinamary***, Ebenezev Jebakumari Selvarani**** *Faculty of Sport Science and Recreation, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia **College of Art and Science, University Utara Malaysia (UUM), Malaysia ***Institut Pendidikan Guru, Kampus Darulaman, Kedah, Malaysia ****Akademi Pengajian Bahasa, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia Online published on 21 November, 2013. Abstract Self-confidence is an athlete's belief that he or she can successfully execute and carry out an appropriate performance. Many researches indicated that high level of self confidence among elite athletes enhance performance. In many research reviews, researchers have found that low level of self confidence had deteriorating effect on athletes’ or teams’ performance. Elite athletes are well-known for high confidence levels. However, to date there has been no attempt to examine self confidence level among athletes of non-elite. Most of the previous researches focus on elite athletes, while ignoring less successful athletes. Therefore, the main aim of the study was to describe and compare the self-confidence level differences among different categories of skills of athletes. The present study also compared the level of self confidence among gender. Data was collected from 78 athletes of University Sains Malaysia (USM), using a 27 item Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2, during MASUM (Sport between Universities) competition. The results showed that national level athletes obtained the highest score on self-confidence. Furthermore, university and district level athletes exhibit the lowest level of self-confidence. The result also showed that male athletes obtained higher score on self confidence compared females. Based on the current results, it is recommended that sport psychologists, sport counselors and coaches in Malaysia use the findings to design appropriate training programs to help district, university level and female athletes to acquire higher level of self confidence to enhance their performance in sports. Top Keywords Self Confidence, elite athletes, non-elite athletes, performance. Top |