The impact of gender on the level of competitive state anxiety and sport performance among Runners

Anxiety is recognized as one of the main factors that reduces athletes’ performance in sports. In many research reviews, researchers have found that high levels of anxiety have the tendency to deteriorate athletes’ performance. However, to date there has been very limited research examining competitive anxiety on gender. The main aim of the study was to compare the level of competitive anxiety and sport performance differences among gender. Data was collected from 107 runners during a sport event, using a 27 item Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and 42item of The Psychological Performance Inventory. The results showed that male athletes obtained the lowest score on competitive state anxiety, t(24.433), p<.0.01. Furthermore, female athletes exhibited the lowest level of sport performance, t(21.443), p<.0.01. Based on the current results, it is recommended that sport psychologists, sport counselors and coaches in Malaysia use the findings to design appropriate training programs to help athletes acquire suitable coping strategies, to reduce their competitive state anxiety levels and enhance their performance.