Abstract

Lithuanian sports educators and coaches are able to work out good physical, technical and tactical training programs, but not enough attention is paid to psychological training of athletes. Many authors underline that psychological training of athletes is a complicated process, without which the enhancement of modern sports is impossible. This study is meant to analyse elite basketball players’ gaining psychological experience in implementing psychological skills training program. The scientific problem is that we still lack information on how psychological skills training programs could help elite basketball players’ train their psychological skills. The urgency of this study is that while working with elite Sports teams it is very important to know, which psychological skills should be developed and where, so that team chances to win were increased. Research object: the influence of psychological training program on the psychological skills in elite basketball players. Research aim was to investigate the efficiency of the implementation of the psychological skills training program in elite basketball players. Research objectives were as follows: To estimate if there are statistically significant differences between imagery skills before and after the psychological skills training program. To ascertain if there are statistically significant differences between goal setting skills before and after the psychological skills training program. 3. To investigate if there are statistically significant differences between the estimation of self-confidence before and after the psychological skills training program. The following research methods have been applied in the study: Bump questionnaires, pedagogical experiment; data has been analysed by means of the mathematical statistics (calculation of means and application of the t test). Psychological skills training program consisted of three stages: introducing certain psychological skills to athlete, helping athlete to acquire those skills in a certain training program, developing those skills, so that athlete could use them in competitive situations. The strategy for acquiring those skills consists of self-observation (athlete makes notes about their progress developing psychological skills), self-evaluation (self-observation results are compared to the desired level of this skill), reinforcement athlete’s reaction to self-evaluation). The research was carried out at Kaunas elite sport clubs “Žalgiris” and “Atletas-Hidruva”. The experiment was performed with 25 elite basketball players, who we divided into experimental group (12 athletes “Žalgiris and control group (13 athletes “Atletas-Hidruva”). By comparing evaluations of the psychological skills in elite basketball players with t test, it is possible to assume that the level of imagery skills and goal-setting skills for players in experimental group differs statistically significantly before experiment and after it. Imagery skills after the psychological skills training program increased in experimental group (the average is 3.59 ± 1.02 before experiment and 4.31 ± 0.62 after it). Psychological skills training program conditioned the statistically significant increase of the estimation of aim achieving skills (t = 4.04, p < 0.1) in experimental group (the average is 3.91 ± 1.01 before experiment and 4.89 ± 1.12 after it). The developed psychological skills conditioned statistically significant (t = 2.49, p < 0.05) increase of self-confidence after the psychological skills training program in experimental group. This was not the case in the control group: the research data of the control group after the experiment to compare with initial results changed little (p > 0.05). Psychological skills training program enables: the optimal use of the players’ physical and psychic powers during the training sessions, the revelation of them during the competitions; to have a real mode of their abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and the professional level of their team members; to get disposed to competitions, their special tasks and requirements; to get concentrated and to act flexibly during the competitions; to renew capacity for work after the physical and psychic workload: to Iearn to enjoy their success, to analyse the causes of failure, to draw conclusions; to overcome conflict and crisis situations. Because of the difficulties implementing psychologicaI skills training programs and the fact that basketbaII is popular sport in Lithuania we have chosen teams of those sport discipline, so that basketball coaches could purposefully use the experience in this field. The practical significance of this study is that, as it is indicated by the research results, this program could be also applied in other sports. Verf.-Referat