This study examined Hanin's (1980) zone of optimal functioning (ZOF) theory. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether being in or out of a ZOF could be used to predict performance of 19 female and 16 male varsity college swimmers. Determining ZOFs required a two part strategy. In part one, subjects retrospectively revealed optimal anxiety using the SAI and CSAI-2 anxiety inventories. Standard deviations from this portion of the study were used to determine the size of individual ZOFs. Each swimmer was assigned SAI, cognitive, somatic, and selfconfidence ZOFs. In part two, swimmers rated level of anxiety prior to competition. Pre-competition anxiety scores were compared to individual ZOFs to determine if swimmers were within or outside their ZOFs prior to performance. A performance score of 1 was assigned to swimmers whose competition time was better than their mean time for previous competition, while a score of 0 was assigned to those swimmers whose performance time was worsethan their mean time for previous competition. Tetrachoric correlations were computed to determine the magnitude of relationship between location about ZOF and subsequent performance score. Results indicated that being within SAI and somatic ZOFs were related to above average performance for male swimmers. A somatic-cognitive interaction was also significant for male swimmers. No significant relationships were identified for female swimmers possibly due to questionable reliability and validity of anxiety responses for females. It was concluded that data for male swimmers supported ZOF theory. / School of Physical Education
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/184403 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Scallen, Stephen |
| Contributors | Ball State University. School of Physical Education., Weeks, Douglas L. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vii, 95 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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