Confidence and scores in archers: Amtajawi 2026

In 15 archers at a sports training centre for students in Central Java (the BPPLOP), the authors related three psychological measures to the mean training score. All three pointed the same way: archers with more self-confidence, higher results on the concentration test and more structured goals also had higher training scores. The correlation was 0.701 for self-confidence (p = 0.004), 0.794 for concentration (p reported as 0.000) and 0.575 for goal setting (p = 0.025).

Taken together, the three measures gave a multiple correlation coefficient of 0.923, an R squared of 0.852: on paper, 85.2% of the differences in score between these archers went with differences in the three measures. The authors conclude that confidence, concentration and goals are linked to training scores and should be part of athlete development.

The study is cross-sectional: the data were collected in a single period from all 15 athletes at the centre. Self-confidence was measured with a 15-item scale scored on nine points, taken from an Indonesian study of university archers; concentration with the Grid Concentration Test, the classic grid of numbers to be found in order, taken from a futsal study (test-retest reliability r = 0.79); goal setting with a 10-item questionnaire written by the authors, from which one item was dropped because it failed the validity check.

The score is the mean of three training scores, recorded once a week: at 50 metres for compound and at 70 metres for recurve. The analyses are Pearson correlations between each measure and the score, followed by a multiple correlation with all three together, after checks for normality, linearity and collinearity.

Fifteen archers are very few for three variables at once: with a sample this small an R squared of 0.852 is probably an overestimate, and the paper reports neither the adjusted R squared nor confidence intervals. We are not told how many shot compound and how many recurve, nor their age, sex or level, and the scores from the two divisions, shot at different distances on different faces, go into the same column: if one division had higher scores and, by chance, different questionnaire answers too, the correlation would come from that. The number of arrows in each score, the means and the ranges are also missing.

The goal-setting questionnaire was built by the authors, and the validity value quoted for two instruments (0.361) is the significance threshold for 30 people, not an index of how well the scale measures. Finally, these are correlations: they do not say whether confidence leads to better shooting or whether better shooters feel more confident, and the paper's own introduction notes that performance affects confidence.

The study confirms an impression many coaches share: in a small youth squad, the archers who shoot best in training are also those who report more confidence, do better on the grid test and have clearer goals. It does not allow anyone to go further. It does not show that working on confidence or goals raises scores, because nobody tried to change them, and it does not separate the effect of the mind from that of experience, which usually brings both better scores and more confidence.

The most interesting result is perhaps the one on concentration, because it comes from a performance test rather than a questionnaire: the number grid went with score more closely than the other two measures. Here too, though, the sample is 15 people split between two divisions shooting at different distances, so it reads as a lead to be checked in larger groups, not as a measure of how much concentration counts in shooting.