The Comparing Perceived Social Support of Elite Healthy and Disable Track and Field Throwers in Process of Expertise Acquisition RJSS RESEARCH JOURNAL OF Vol 4 (SP2): 32-36 http://www.rjssjournal.com ISSN: 2148-0834 Copyright 2016 SPORT SCIENCES Zahra NaghiZadeh 1, Rokhsareh Badami 2* 1 MSc of Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 2 Assistant professor of Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran * Corresponding Author Email: Rokhsareh.badami@gmail.com ABSTRACT The aim of current research is comparing perceived social protection from family, trainer and friends of competitive healthy and disable track and field athletics in national and international level (25 healthy persons and 25 disable persons) in the process of reaching to expertise. So, 50 available and targeted track and field throwers (25 healthy and 25 disable track and field athletics) were selected. By using from a researcher- made questionnaire the rate of emotional and financial support from family and also the rate of support from trainer and friends have been recorded. There is a significant difference between two groups in the rate of perceived support from parents and trainer and healthy track and field athletics have perceived further social support than disable ones. There is any significant difference between the rates of support from brothers and sisters and friends. KEYWORDS Social Support, Elite Healthy, Disable Track, Acquisition. INTRODUCTION Genetic, environmental and rates of exercising factors play an important role in reaching to expertise. But, the share of these factors in sport success is still in a halo of uncertainty (Baker & Davids, 2007). Biologic reports have emphasized on the share of physical capabilities and characteristics in reaching to expertise. So, expertise is relatively related to genetic (Bouchard, Malina & Perusse, 1997). The reports on the rates of experts' exercise also show that expertise is resulted from a long- term systematic attempting (Cote, Baker & Abernethy, 2007). So, the rate of exercising has also role in expertise. Examining field and environmental factors has shown that external and environmental factors have effect on sport development. Among effective environmental factors in reaching to expertise we can refer to social support off family, trainer and friends. Social support is a multidimensional concept which is defined in different method. Some introduces social support as a social reality and others introduce it resulted from individual percepts and imagination. Individuals' percepts can be under effect of different factors such as attention or accuracy, sensory deprivation, empathy, age, individuals' position, social roles, cognition capabilities, individuals' personality, gender, and individuals' physiological status (Gail, 2000; translated by Sader Amoli, 2004). In general, it may be said that social support means that the person is important for others and others respect that person and this fact that that person belongs to a social network (Riahi et al., 2010). Also, some have titled that social support included 32
interpersonal interactions like emotional issues (caring, encouraging, sympathy), helping (services, money and or information) and acknowledgment (effective feedbacks, appreciating) (quoted by Yarahmadi, 2011). Several researchers have examined the importance and efficacy of some environmental factors like by parents, brothers and sisters, trainer and friends on sport participation and success. Cote (1999) in a research examines the effect of family on progressing talent in sport. He stated that, parents in sampling years are responsible for primary making their children interested in sport and convert to undertaker supporters in investment years. Also, the results of Gould et al. research show that parents play an important role in success of elite athletics, but excessive encouraging them to win or forcing them to play prevent them to be successful in sport. Some studies have been conducted about social support from trainer. Nazarian Madouni (2009) stated that the perception of an athletic from his/ her trainer's behavior affected indirectly his/ her performance. Gordon (1999) has also reported that there is a direct relationship between perceived behavior of trainer and athletics' self- esteem. Also, Koka (2011) referred to higher motivation of teammates who perceived their trainers' behavior. Another study has been conducted on the swimmers who continue the activity and who leave the activity show that the swimmers who insist on swimming perceive their trainers as supportive and high independent individuals, while the people who leave the sport have perceived their trainers with further control (Pelletier et al., 2001). About the role of social support from friends, sisters and brothers there are a few studies but Gledhill & Harwood (2014) have stated that sisters, brothers and friends have important role in sport developing of athletics. By reviewing the previous researches that some of them have been referred in the last paragraph shows that social support has an effect on sport development of athletics. However, there are few studies on perceived social support of healthy and disable athletics in the process of expertise acquisition. So, the aim of the current research is to compare perceived social support of elite healthy and disable field and track throwers in the process of their expertise acquisition. MATERIALS AND METHODS The method of this research is descriptive comparative caused type and it is considered applied in terms of its purpose. The participants of this research are 50 healthy and disable available track and field throwers (25 healthy throwers and 25 disable throwers) competed in national and international levels. This study, is a part of a larger study in which complete information have been collected about physical and exercising activity of athletics by using from developmental history of athletes questionnaire (DHAQ) by Hop Wood. For measuring social support by getting idea from Cote (1999) developmental model of sport participation, the rate of social support from parents, trainer, friends, sisters and brothers as retrospective and based on 5- points scale of Likret for 3 stages of Cote (1999) developmental model of sport participation means testing (6-12 years), specialization (13-15 years) and investment (more than 16 years) has been used separately and total social support in the years of sport participation considered as total rate of from parents, trainers, friends, sisters and brothers. Validity of this questionnaire has been confiremed by specialists and reliability of this questionnaire has computed 0.87, 0.91, 0.76 and 0.79 for from parents, trainers, sisters and brothers and friends, respectively. Independent t- test has been used for analyzing data. RESULTS In the following table independent t- test has been summarized for comparing healthy and disable field and track throwers competed in national and international level in the rate of sisters and brothers support, trainers support and friends support. 33
Table 1. Anova Test. Variable parents sisters and brothers trainers friends Athletics Margining average Disable 4.84 Healthy 7.40 Disable 4.56 Healthy 5.52 Disable 4.60 Healthy 7.79 Disable 3.92 Healthy 4.80 Variance homogeneity Sum of squares DF Average of squares F- statistic Sig. 1.131 81.92 1 81.92 11.93 0.001 0.682 11.52 1 11.52 1.07 0.305 0.020 124.82 1 124.82 12.13 0.001 2.53 9.68 1 9.68 1.11 0.297 The amounts related to the estimation of independent t- test show that the average of parents and trainers among healthy throwers is significantly higher than disable throwers. But there is no significant difference among sisters and brothers and friends between two groups. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Since the process of reaching to the expertise is a multifactorial process which is included genetic, physical talent, mental stamina, family support, from counterparties, having an excellent trainer and educational conditions and the aim of this research is examination of family, trainer and friends - role in reaching to expertise of elite healthy and disable field and track throwers. Based on findings, there is statistical difference between the rate of parents and trainer. In other words, the rate of perceived support by disable throwers is lesser than healthy throwers. This difference is notable, because the importance of systems of family and trainer cannot be ignored in the field of elite s performance and this importance has been confirmed in researches (Cote, 1999; Wolfenden & Holt, 2005; Fraser-Thomas, Cote & Deakin, 2008; Dieffenbach and Statler, 2012; Gledhill & Harwood, 2014; Taylor and Collins, 2015). Bloom (1985) and Cote (1999) stated that financial and emotional from family of a person is important in specialized performance. Pankhurst and Collins (2013) stated that the role of family is critical in progressing athletic. Brackenridge (2006) stated that without family partnership many athletics are not able to continue their partnership in their sport fields. David (2005) suggested that when young athletics follow a sport seriously and exercise more than two hour in a day, it is natural that parents participate it. Leblanc and Dickson (2006) also stated that in short time due to transportation, financial helping, relationship with trainers, changing in family activities for creating fitness between competition and exercise, emotional support or by presence in competitors, parents are a key part in their children development. Also, in relation to social support role among special samples (disables), Aryanpoor et al. (2015) showed in their research that there is a significant and positive relationship between social support of family and its components by efficacy of disable and veteran athletics. High rate of perceived support by healthy athletics than disable ones in the process of expertise acquisition can be divided in two types. First, since perception of an individual depends on factors such as the rate of attention or accuracy, sensory deprivation, empathy, age, individuals' position, social roles, cognition capabilities, individuals' personality, gender, and individuals' physiological status (Gail, 2000; translated by Sader Amoli, 2004) but observed difference between healthy and disable athletics may depends on physical differences among them and consequently their different experiences. 34
The 2 nd justification is this fact that parents includes emotional and financial support. Disables may don t have difference in the perceived emotional support with healthy athletics but there is significant differences in the rate of financial support; because expenses of disable athletics are more than healthy athletics. Regarding to the news published by Invoker website (2007), the price of each artificial leg from the beneath of knee, especially for running is almost 5000 pound and the price of wheelchair especially for speedy races of disables is about 7000$; so, the rate of perceived difference from parents of healthy and disable throwers is due to lack of ability disables' families in assessing their financial needs. Also, in relation to trainers', Fraser-Thomas, Cote and Deakin (2008) suggest that trainers should try to establish suitable relationship with all athletics. Campbell and Jones (1997, 2002) titled that negative styles of coaching, behaviors and subjects related to the relationship caused to stress and preventing from the performance among basketball players with wheelchair. It is seemed that the importance of trainer in sport communities of disables is most important than healthy individuals; because Brittain (2002) stated that in sport communities, disable individuals may refuse to catch help from others because of being overhead and Depauw and Gavron (1991) and Martin (2010) suggested that qualified trainers are less in disables community. They titled that only 16% of disables' sport trainers had been disables. Although for perceiving disability having disability is not essential, most of trainers have reported at least exercising with disable athletics before working with this community. So, low experiences of trainers in working with disables may cause them to not perceive disables conditions and support them appropriately. Other finding of this study shows that there is not significant relationship among the rate of sisters and brothers support and the rate of friends support. While Cote (1999) suggests that sisters and brothers have role in progressing young athletics. Also, Gledhill and Harwood (2014) stated that soccer brothers act for sissy players as positive or negative patterns and as an information resource on key selections of profession. Also, friends play an important role in helping to players for advancing required regular lifestyle of a young elite soccer. Fraser-Thomas, Cote and Deakin (2008) also note that friends play a significant role on continuity of partnership. Findings of this study show that healthy and disable filed and track athletics receive some supports from their sisters and brothers and friend but there is not a significant difference between the rate of perceived support of disable and healthy field and track athletics. One of reasons for this lack of difference may be related to expectations level of disables from sisters, brothers and friends. In general, the findings of this study show that there is no significant difference between two groups in terms of the rate of sisters and brothers' support and friends support but a significant difference can be observed in the rate of parents support and trainers support. It is suggested that in future studies the rate of parents support in two emotional and financial sub-scales is measured separately to better judge on the difference between social support and healthy and disable support in two emotional and financial levels. It is suggested that in future studies the relationship between perceived social supports are measured with psychic health. Individuals who perceive higher psychic health may perceive further social support. Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest REFERENCES Aryanpoor S, Hosseininia Seyed R, Bahrololum H, 2015. The relationship between social support of family with efficacy of veteran and disable athletics. International conference of research modern findings in sport sciences. Baker J, Davids K, (Eds). 2007. Nature, nurture, and sport performance. International Journal Of Sport Psychology. 38(1) (Special issue): 1-143. Bloom BS, (Ed.). 1985. Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballantine. Bouchard C, Malina RM, Perusse L, 1997. Genetics of Fitness and Physical Performance. Champaign. IL: Human Kinetics. 35
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