Enhancing mental toughness in upper school-aged male children within sports school setting: An experimental study

The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of a program to enhance mental toughness in upper school-aged male children within sports school setting. Thirty sports school male children aged 15-16 were involved in a program to enhance mental toughness, while thirty-two children were assigned to a control group and received no intervention. Mental toughness enhancement program was designed to enhance athletic mental toughness skills: determination, visualization, positive cognition, and self-belief. Before and after the educational experiment, children from the experimental and control groups completed the Psychological Performance Inventory-Alternative (PPI-A). The findings revealed that educational program had a significant medium overall effect (F (4, 57) = 2.62; p < .05; η_p² = 0.16) on mental toughness of upper school-aged male children in the experimental group. Univariate analyses of the interaction between group and time for athletic mental toughness revealed a statistically significant impact of the educational program on positive cognition and self-belief within sports school settings. The conclusions of this study could be valuable for practitioners seeking to cultivate the mental toughness of children in sports school setting. This research may stimulate more research in the future, specifically targeting upper school-age, a relatively under-researched age period.