EVALUATION OF AN IMAGERY TRAINING PROGRAM WITH INTERCOLLEGIATE BASKETBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this investigation was (a) to develop an imagery training program using the best procedures currently known and (b) to evaluate this imagery training program in a real-life or field setting. It was conducted over an entire competitive season using the University of Illinois men's basketball team as the treatment group and two other conference teams as control groups. Changes in physical and psychological skills were measured primarily through case studies utilizing inventories and observations.;Both inferential and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. For the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), imagery in sport, and coaches' questionnaires administered pre- and postseason to the treatment and control groups, an analysis of covariance design was used with the preseason measure as the covariate. For the few questions with only 2 or 3 possible answers a chi square analysis was used to determine differences between the treatment and control groups. For the precompetitive CSAI-2 inventory, the baseline measure was the covariate.;Answers to each of the target questions were as follows: (1) It cannot be concluded that the imagery training program decreased competitive state anxiety because the Illinois and control groups showed no differences on their competitive state anxiety measures and no consistent trend among the case studies was evident in this area. (2) A variety of evidence suggests that imagery training may have improved self-confidence in specific areas like shooting and ball handling in individual cases, but the weight of the evidence remains inconclusive. (3) The imagery training improved specific strategies like offensive and defensive execution. (4) The case studies indicated that the athletes who developed commitment to the imagery training tended to believe that the program improved their basketball performance.;Evaluation of the imagery training program was accomplished by answering 4 target questions: (1) Does imagery training provide the athlete with increased ability for reducing competitive anxiety? (2) Does imagery training improve self-confidence over time in specific areas like shooting and ball handling? (3) Does imagery training improve the execution of specific strategies like offensive and defensive execution? (4) Does imagery training improve overall basketball performance? Various inventories and recording logs were used to answer each of these questions.