As a research on high school soccer players'' competitive-state anxiety before soccer matches, this study aims to suggest useful data to improve their athletic performance by investigating the degree of anxiety by their school year, career, position and award experience and further by examining the effect of their anxiety on their soccer performance. As for research participants, this study selected a total of 230 ones from 7 soccer teams out of all the high school soccer players registered on KFA (Seoul, Ganwon Province and Gyeonggi Province) in 2011. A total of 230 copies of the provided questionnaire were distributed, out of which this study used 217 copies while excluding the remaining unfaithful data determined to have low reliability since they had repetitive responses or no response. As a measuring tool, this study used questionnaire tests.
Soccer players'' competitive-state anxiety was investigated through CSAI-2 (Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2), and their perceived athletic performance was examined through the performance evaluation developed by Mamassis and Doganis (2004).
With the research results analyzed, this study could come to the following conclusions.
Firstly, when their athletic performance and state anxiety were examined with their school year, there was no significant difference found in their athletic performance, perceived state anxiety, physical state anxiety and state confidence by their school year.
Secondly, when their athletic performance and state anxiety were examined with their career as a soccer player, there was no significant difference found in their athletic performance, perceived state anxiety and state confidence by their career as a soccer player, but there was a significant difference found in their state anxiety. .
Thirdly, when their athletic performance and state anxiety were examined with their position, there was a significant difference found in their athletic performance by their career, but there was no significant difference found in their perceived state anxiety, physical state anxiety and state confidence by their position.
Fourthly, when their athletic performance and state anxiety were examined with their award experience, there were significant differences found in their athletic performance, perceived state anxiety, physical state anxiety and state confidence by their award experience.
Fifthly, when their athletic performance and state anxiety were examined with the number of their winning awards, there were significant differences found in their athletic performance, perceived state anxiety and state confidence, but no difference in their physical state anxiety by the number of their winning awards.
Then, this study examined the effect of their perceived state anxiety, physical state anxiety and state confidence on their athletic performance, and it was found that there were significant differences found in them. .
When investigating the correlation between their athletic performance and their perceived state anxiety, physical state anxiety and state confidence, this study found out that as soccer players'' physical state anxiety increased, their athletic performance decreased. Besides, it was found that as their physical state anxiety increased, their athletic performance increased.
Based on the results of this study, soccer players'' athletic performance cannot be all determined by their competitive-state anxiety. Therefore, it seems necessary to carry out a multilateral research on other environmental factors, such as head coach and coaches, etc.
Moreover, it is needed not only to precisely observe soccer players'' competitive-state anxiety before and after a soccer match, but to analyze their individual psychological anxiety in detail, further developing a measuring tool for their anxieity. At the same time, through various different methods, soccer players'' state anxiety should be researched, and the results should be applied to their athletic field.
At present, soccer instructors and leaders have train their soccer players by focusing on physical strength, strategies and skills, but psychological training should be accompanied and applied to their athletic field as soon as possible.
It is necessary to apply these psychological aspects to soccer players'' athletic training field, but it seems difficult for soccer instructors and leaders to apply these principles to training their soccer players. Therefore, this study considers it necessary to encourage and educate soccer instructors and leaders the importance of psychological aspects to improve their soccer players'' athletic performance.