Imagery: a study on paralympic athletes

The aim of this study is to determine the imagery levels of athletes competing in the Turkish Paralympic national team. The sample consisted of a total of 111 Paralympic athletes, including individuals with physical impairments (n = 61) and visual impairments (n = 50), who had achieved rankings in national and international competitions (Olympic, World, European, and Balkan championships). The participants had a mean age of 29.27 ± 11.11 years and an average sports experience of 12.47 ± 8.43 years and were involved in both team sports (basketball, goalball, badminton) and individual sports (athletics, taekwondo, judo, table tennis, archery, swimming). Of the participants, 37 were female and 74 were male. This study was designed using a descriptive and correlational survey model. Data were collected through a demographic information form and the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ). The Independent Samples t-test was applied to examine differences between two independent groups, and Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationships between variables. The results indicated a significant difference between genders in the Motivation General-Arousal (MG-A) sub-dimension (male mean = 4.30; female mean = 4.74). When the relationship between sports experience and SIQ sub-dimensions was examined, very strong positive correlations were identified between Cognitive Specific CS (r = 0.92) and MG-A (r = 0.94), while strong positive and statistically significant correlations were found between CS (r = 0.72) and Motivation General-Mastery (MG-M) (r = 0.80). In addition, a significant difference was observed between age and Motivation Specific (MS). No statistically significant differences were found between SIQ sub-dimensions and gender, sports experience, type of disability, or athletic achievement. Based on these findings, it is suggested that future studies incorporate causal analyses and include comparisons with non-disabled athletes, considering that imagery, as a critical component of sport psychology, constitutes an important factor in athletic performance.