Mental profile of junior archers: Suryanto 2011

The study is a snapshot of how junior archers in the Yogyakarta region of Indonesia described themselves in 2011. Of 35 athletes, 32 completed the questionnaire: one was absent and two did not return it. The questionnaire is Form C for psychological monitoring from the national training centre of the Indonesian Olympic committee (KONI): 24 yes-or-no questions split into six factors. For each factor the score is the percentage of yes answers.

The means are high across the board. Motivation 86.72% (standard deviation 16.78), communication 83.59% (17.52), cooperation 76.88% (16.15), adaptation 100% for everyone, with a standard deviation of zero, initiative 97.92% (8.20), confidence 89.84% (14.00). Across all 24 questions the mean is 88.28%, with a minimum of 75% and a standard deviation of 6.21: 31 of the 32 athletes fall in the "very good" band and one in the "good" band.

The author concludes that all six factors sit in the top category, attributes this maturity to the athletes' competition experience and suggests that coaches keep monitoring psychological state regularly.

This is a descriptive study of the whole available population, with no sampling. There are few questions per factor: four each for motivation, communication, adaptation and confidence, five for cooperation, three for initiative. Each yes scores one point and each no zero; each athlete's score is the percentage of the maximum. The bands are fixed: above 75% "very good", 50 to 75% "good", 25 to 50% "fair", up to 25% "poor".

The paper does not report the athletes' age, sex, bow style, years of practice or competition level, nor any data on the questionnaire's reliability or on how it was filled in.

With four yes-or-no questions there are only five possible scores for a factor (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%), and going above 75% means answering yes to all four. Such a coarse instrument discriminates poorly, and adaptation at 100% with a standard deviation of zero shows that those questions separate nobody. These are answers about socially desirable qualities, given by young people on a federation form: the paper does not say whether they were anonymous or whether coaches were present.

There are also errors in the text. For cooperation, the commentary repeats the communication mean (83.59%) instead of the 76.88% calculated just before. The author names communication as the weakest factor, but by mean the lowest is cooperation; communication only has the smallest share of athletes in the top band (46.88%). Explaining the athletes' maturity by their competition experience is the author's hypothesis, not something measured, and there is no link at all to shooting scores. The statement in the introduction that the mind accounts for 80% of competition is a quotation from a coaching handout, not a finding.

The study says nothing about how to shoot. It is a snapshot of a group of young archers from one Indonesian region describing themselves, on a federation form, in very positive terms. The most useful point concerns the instrument: a short yes-or-no questionnaire about qualities everyone would like to have tends to produce scores close to the maximum. A "very good" result obtained this way says little about an athlete's state and does not separate those who are fine from those who are struggling.