Anxiety in junior archers in lockdown: Wan Ahmad 2023

During Malaysia's COVID-19 lockdown, 32 recurve archers from a sports school in Pahang, with a mean age of around 16, trained at home at 10 metres, coached over video call. Over eight sessions in two months they filled in an anxiety questionnaire (CSAI-2R) before shooting, took their own heart rate before and after, and reported their score for 30 arrows. They were split into two categories of 16 according to their best competition score (350.5 against 333.1 on average).

Scores changed little: the stronger group averaged 236.7 in the first month and 248.4 in the second, the others 172.8 and 175.2, with standard deviations of 40 to 48 points. The overall means reported (238.4 and 174.0) do not match the average of the two months. Answers to the somatic anxiety items shift downwards from the first week to the eighth. The only significant correlation with score was self-confidence (r = 0.36, p = 0.02); cognitive and somatic anxiety showed weak, non-significant correlations. Heart rate rose after the session in both groups and was higher in the stronger archers (from 91.5 to 104.6 beats per minute, against 75.1 and 95.2).

Of the 41 archers recruited, 9 dropped out because of school commitments or quarantine. Sessions ran on Google Meet with each archer at home and the target at 10 metres for lack of space; each session was 30 arrows under a modified scoring system the paper does not describe, preceded at the start by a familiarisation of two ends of three arrows. The CSAI-2R has 17 items on a 1 to 4 scale, split into somatic anxiety (7), cognitive anxiety (5) and self-confidence (5), and was completed 10 minutes before shooting. Each archer measured their own heart rate with a finger pulse oximeter and entered it in an online form together with the score. The analyses were repeated-measures analysis of variance and Pearson correlations.

All the data, scores included, were self-reported from home with nobody checking them on site, and there was no group training without online supervision, so there is no telling whether anxiety fell because of the coach on the video call, familiarity with the questionnaire or the end of lockdown, which came during that very period. The title links anxiety and performance, yet scores did not rise appreciably.

The figures in the paper are often inconsistent. The abstract gives self-confidence of 2.32 for the stronger archers and 1.38 for the others, while the session table shows values between 2.3 and 3.2; the correlation between self-confidence and cognitive anxiety is given as r = 0.55 with p = 0.72, two values that cannot go together with 32 athletes; 20 of the 32 were male, but the text speaks of three quarters and 65.5%; the duration is stated as two months and as twelve weeks; and the design is described as both experimental and cross-sectional. The score table has three rows, first month, second month and total, but the text describes it in terms of the second session of the second month, and it is not clear how many sessions go into each mean. The journal is flagged in the registry for questionable editorial standards.

The study describes an exceptional period: young archers used to a sports school, forced to shoot at home at 10 metres, alone, with the coach on a screen. Under those conditions training scores held steady for two months, and the better archers started with more confidence and less anxiety. The authors conclude that remote supervision helps, but the study has no comparison that could show it.

Little of this carries over to an archer today. The link between self-confidence and score is weak and comes from data collected at home over a shortened distance; the study says nothing about anxiety in competition, because it was never measured there.