Effect of mental imagery training on novice archery athlete performance / Muhammad Rafiudin Sa'ari

Imagery has been shown to be one of most effective psychological tool in enhancing
athlete performance in a variety of sports. The main purpose of this study was to identify
the effect of mental imagery training on novice archery athlete performance with
additional purpose to compare differences between novice and expert athlete shooting
accuracy performance. The intervention cross-sectional research design was used in this
study which involved pre and post-test with treatment intervention. Subjects were 12
archery athletes employed from Majlis Sukan Negara (Pahang) with an average age of
15.8 years old (sd=l.03). Subjects were divided into two groups: novice athlete
(experimental group), expert athlete (control group). Pre and post-test with treatment·,
intervention design was implemented in this study. A set of data was recorded: shooting
accuracy. It was found that novice athlete improved between pre-test (M=72.83,
sd=9.80) and post-test (M=79.83, sd=7.80). This study also found that there are
differences between novice and expert athlete shooting accuracy performance with
expert athlete scored M=91.83 (sd=3.76) on pre-test compare to M=72.83 (sd=9.80) for
novice athlete while in post-test, expert athlete scored M=94.50 (sd=1.87) compared to
novice athlete, M=79.83 (sd=7.80). Implications from this study might provide
beneficial training method for novice archers to increase their shooting accuracy
performance.