Psychological well-being, self-efficacy, and cultural values: predictors of self-reported athletic performance

Abstract

In light of the fervent cultivation of athletic achievements, linked to elevating Kazakhstan's prestige on the international stage as a land of worthy champions, there is a burgeoning interest in the psychological facets of sports within academia. This study's pertinence arises from the dearth of holistic investigations that concurrently consider psychological, cultural, and personal factors within the context of collegiate athletics. Extant research frequently examines psychological factors in isolation, neglecting their interplay. Furthermore, the influence of cultural values on learners’ athletic pursuits remains underexplored, and a comprehensive understanding of the nexus between those metrics and subjective appraisal of athletic accomplishments is lacking. Given this gap, the aim of this research is to uncover the influence of self-assessed psychological well-being, confidence in one's abilities, and the perception of cultural values on student-athletes subjective athletic performance. In this study, involving 237 third-year students from the Academy of Physical Culture and Mass Sports in Astana, psychological well-being, self-efficacy, cultural values and subjective sports performance were measured via the SAWBF scale, PSES tool, VBN measurement model, and the sports subscale of the PSPP questionnaire, respectively. Six hypotheses regarding interrelationships were posited and scrutinized using ordinary least squares regression and moderator analysis within the PROCESS macro. The findings revealed that psychological well-being and cultural values are salient predictors of subjective athletic performance; cultural values also act as a moderator, affecting the relationship between psychological well-being and subjective sports performance. No significant direct effect of self-efficacy was observed, suggesting the need for further investigation of this variable, considering other contributory factors. The findings underscore the potential for applying these results in developing psychological support programs for student-athletes, creating recommendations for enhancing sports efficiency, and devising methodologies for athletic self-diagnosis.

Keywords: student-athletes, athletes, subjective athletic performance, self-assuredness, psychological well-being, cultural values.