Effectiveness of Cognitive Readiness Training on Decision Making Skill and Shooting Performance with Moderating Effect of Competitive State Anxiety

Aims: Decision making and shooting are essential skills of the militaries. Cognitive readiness can reduce human errors and increase the desired performance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive readiness training on decision making skill and shooting performance with moderating effect of competitive state anxiety.
This quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest designs with control was implemented in all students of a Tehran’s,Iran, military university which received the training unit in the second semester of the 2016-2017 academic year. Using the purposive sampling, 68 subjects (34 cases with state anxiety) were selected as samples. The Cox Competitive State Anxiety Inventory and California Critical Thinking Questionnaire were used for data collection. Data was analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS 19 software.
Findings: There was a significant difference effect between experimental and control group in the mean scores of the decision making and shooting skills with 99% confidence (p Cognitive readiness is effective in improving decision making and shooting skills in both anxious and non-anxious situations.