With more years of competition, archers report more confidence, better concentration and fewer worries

The summary today

There is a single study that measures exactly this, and it says yes for three skills out of seven. Seventy Greek archers competing at national level, aged 12 to 49, filled in a mental skills questionnaire (ACSI-28, scored 1 to 6) before the 2011 national championship: those with six or more years of competition report more confidence (4.7 against 3.9), better concentration (5.4 against 4.7) and fewer worries (4.4 against 3.7) than those with one or two. For confidence and concentration the gain already shows between three and five years, and between that group and those with six or more years the difference is not significant, while coping with adversity, preparing with goals and listening to the coach do not change with the years. Three things limit how far it can be read. It is a snapshot taken at a single moment, which cannot separate archers who grew from archers who stayed in competition because they could already handle it. These are self-ratings, on four-item scales with low internal consistency, from 0.60 to 0.76. And on worries the data are odd: by age it is the youngest who report fewer of them, with the same mean and the same standard deviation (4.4 and 0.89) that the paper gives the most experienced group, while the discussion states that the older archers worry less. A Turkish paper from 2019 on 156 archers, in a venue the registry marks as questionable, finds no difference in state or trait anxiety between those who have shot for one to three years and those who have shot for seven or more: but it measures anxiety and years of practice, not worries and years of competition.

Also phrased as: "competition experience and mental skills"; "experience builds confidence"; "experienced archers worry less"; "a competition mindset comes with the years"

Evidence

• 2015
  For Archers Published later

  70 Greek archers competing at national level (48 men and 22 women, aged 12 to 49) at the 2011 national championship, Greek version of the ACSI-28 scored 1 to 6, filled in before competing, grouped by years of competition into 1 to 2 (26), 3 to 5 (21) and 6 or more (23). Confidence 3.9, 4.6 and 4.7 (F = 14.4) and concentration 4.7, 5.1 and 5.4 (F = 9.2), with significant differences only against the one-to-two-year group; fewer worries in the most experienced group, 4.4 against 3.7 (F = 3.1). Coping with adversity, goal setting and mental preparation, and coachability do not differ. By age the picture on worries reverses: 4.4 (SD 0.89) in the 12 to 16 year olds against 3.7 (SD 1.08) in the over-25s, the same values as the comparison by experience, while the older archers report peaking better under pressure (4.1 against 3.1). Internal consistency between 0.60 and 0.76; for confidence the paper prints F with 2 and 109 degrees of freedom on 70 people.

  Psychological skills of elite archery athletes · Evangelos Bebetsos

• 2019
  Context Archers Published later

  156 Turkish archers, 110 recurve and 46 compound, with Spielberger's inventory for state and trait anxiety, grouped by years of practice into 1 to 3, 4 to 6 and 7 or more. State anxiety barely falls from one group to the next (61.35, 60.26 and 59.63; F = 0.445, p = 0.641) and trait anxiety does not change (40.81, 42.00 and 40.18; F = 0.420, p = 0.658). It measures anxiety and years of practice, not the reported worries or the years of competition the claim is about, and the journal is marked as a questionable venue: it is context and does not decide the status.

  Examination of the Level of State- Trial Anxiety of Elite Level Archers from Several Variables Questionable venue · Haluk Saçakli

Status history

1. 1984 Not studied Nobody in the registry's bibliography has yet set archers' self-reported mental skills against their years of competition.
2. 2015 Reported Seventy Greek archers competing at national level, aged 12 to 49, answer the ACSI-28: those with six or more years of competition report more confidence (4.7 against 3.9), better concentration (5.4 against 4.7) and fewer worries (4.4 against 3.7). The gain, however, already shows between three and five years, and beyond that the difference is no longer significant; it touches only three of the seven factors: coping with adversity, preparing with goals and willingness to listen to the coach do not change with the years. One finding has to be mentioned because it runs against what the authors write: by age, it is the youngest who report fewer worries, not the older archers. A single cross-sectional study made of self-ratings: reported.
3. 2019 Reported A second paper touches the part about worries, but from a different angle. In 156 Turkish archers grouped by years of practice, state anxiety measured with Spielberger's inventory barely falls, from 61 to 60, between those who have shot for one to three years and those who have shot for seven or more, and the difference is not significant; trait anxiety does not change. This is anxiety, not reported worries, and these are years of practice, not of competition; the journal is also marked as a questionable venue, which under the registry's rules does not decide a status. The 2015 Greek study still stands: reported.

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Research lines

• 32 studiesThe archer's mental profile: forty years of questionnaires
• 52 studiesMental training: what has been tested on archers since 1979

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