The Effects of Instructional and Motivational Self-Talk on Anxiety, Self-Confidence and Performance of Badminton Long Serve

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of self-talk functions on anxiety, self-confidence and performance of badminton long serve. therefore, 30 girl students voluntarily participated in this study, and were assigned into three groups including instructional self-talk, motivational self-talk, and control groups according to pretest scores. Participants used instructional and motivational statements before skill execution in acquisition phase. Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2R) was completed in pretest and posttest. Results indicated that self-confidence and performance of motivational self-talk group were significantly greater than instructional self-talk and control groups in post-test, self-confidence improved in instructional and motivational self-talk groups significantly, and motivational self-talk group showed improvement in performance significantly. Finally, performance of badminton long serve was significantly predicted by self-confidence. The results suggested that motivational self-talk can be used to enhance self-confidence and performance and increases in self-confidence can explain the facilitating effects of self-talk on performance.