An Exploratory Investigation of the Perceptions of Anxiety Among Basketball Officials Before, During, and After the Contest.

Burke, Kevin L. ; Joyner, A. Barry ; Pim, Ami 等

An exploratory investigation of 25 basketball officials' perceptions of trait anxiety, and state anxiety before, during (half time), and after a basketball game was conducted. Twenty-five male high school and college basketball officials were administered a demographic questionnaire and basketball officiating-modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Jnventory-2 (CSAI-2; Martens, Vealey, & Burton, 1990). The participants completed the CSAI-2 within 30 minutes of the start, during half time, and within 15 minutes after the completion of the game. Also after the game, the basketball officials completed a basketball officiating-modified version of the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT; Martens et al., 1990). Results indicated that the officials reported feeling significantly less cognitive anxiety after a contest than before a contest (p = .018). Also, no significant changes in self-confidence and somatic anxiety across the three contest administrations. Comparisons are made between the officials' sco res with the norms provided with the CSAI-2 and SCAT (Martens et al., 1990).

The effects of stress and anxiety in sport, usually in coaches and athletes, have received much attention (Goldsmith & Williams, 1992; Kyriacou, 1987; Martens, Vealey, & Burton, 1990; Rainey, 1995; Scanlan, 1984; Silva, 1990). However, so little attention has been given to officials, judges, referees, or umpires (in comparison to athletes) they have been labeled as the "neglected participants" (Burke & Miller, 1990). Due to the particular duties in contests that sport officials have, it is important to investigate the psychological consequences of this unique type of sport involvement. Of the studies performed with sport officials, officiating is reported to cause stress as well as physical illnesses or stress symptoms (Fucini, 1979; Gait, Cook, Allen, & Duncan, 1979; Rotella, McGuire, & Gansneder, 1985; Zoeller, 1985). Holland (1979) found that high school basketball officials have reached a heart rate of 80-90% of their maximum during the beginning of a playoff game. Conti and McClintock (1983) found that collegiate football officials have experienced a heart rate of 79% of their maximum during the opening kickoff and a heart rate of 99% of their maximum during a fight between players. Therefore, officials need to be physically prepared to handle the physical requirements of the sport they officiate and able to combat the psychological stressors associated with this unique sport position. Furthermore, Taylor and Daniel (1987) have discovered that stress causes officials to become introspective which, in turn, worsens their performance due to the lack of a broad external focus on the contest.

Taylor and Daniel (1987) developed the Soccer Officials Stress Survey (SOSS) to measure the perceived types of stressors among soccer officials. The SOSS is divided into six subscales of stress: fear of physical harm, peer conflicts, role culture conflict, fear of failure, time pressures, and interpersonal conflicts. Results indicated that soccer officials experience the most stress from fear of failure, and the least stress from fear of physical harm.

Taylor, Daniel, Lieth, and Burke (1990) used the Ontario Soccer Officials Survey, a revised form of the SOSS which includes a modified Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach & Jackson, 1986). They found that burnout among officials was most related to stress from fear of failing, interpersonal conflict, role culture conflict, and other evaluative forms of officiating. Consistent with early occupational stress research, Taylor et al. (1990) found a positive correlation between total stress factors and total burnout score. Goldsmith and Williams (1992) also produced a revised form of the SOSS for intramural, non-certified, and certified volleyball and football officials. The revised form added two other stressors (pressure game & verbal abuse) to the SOSS. Results were inconclusive in this study. Rainey (1995) used a revised version of the SOSS on baseball and softball umpires. Results revealed four correlated factors (fear of failure, fear of physical harm, time pressure and interpersonal conflict) similar t o those found in Taylor and Daniel (1987).

Although past research has mainly examined the sources of stress, recent studies have focused on the intensity of stress experienced by referees. Rainey and Hardy's (1997) study of 682 rugby referees from Wales, Scotland, and England detected stress levels to be very minimal. Stewart and Ellery (1996) discovered very little and moderate stress among volleyball officials. Rainey and Winterich (1995) reported that of the 723 basketball referees studied, only 4% reported high stress. The mean was between a low and moderate stress rating. Gilbert, Trudel and Bloom's (1995) case study of intramural ice hockey referees discovered that stress was not reported to be problematic.

Very little research (in comparison to athletes) on the sources of stress and anxiety has been performed with basketball officials (Anshel & Weinberg, 1995). Kaissidis and Anshel (1993) compared both the intensity and the sources of stress levels between young and adult basketball officials. Results showed the young (ages 14-18 years) referees to be significantly more stressed than their adult (19-46 years) colleagues in making a wrong call and administering a technical foul. Stressors that were ranked the lowest included presence of the media, making a mistake in mechanics, and verbal abuse by spectators. Anshel and Weinberg (1995) found that Australian and American basketball referees differed markedly in the selected sources of stress. Stressors such as making the wrong call, verbal abuse by players, verbal abuse by spectators, and arguing with players were significantly different between cultures. Anshel and Weinberg (1996) with the use of the Basketball Officials Sources of Stress Inventory (BOSSI) disc overed that American and Australian referees were more similar than different in regards to coping strategies. Although there was a cultural difference in the self-reported use of behavioral and emotional coping strategies, similarities arose between the actual coping strategies (i.e., giving a technical foul). Anshel and Weinberg (1996) also found that far more Americans (39%) than Australians (13%) used the coping strategy of calmly talking to the coach in an abusive situation. Americans also preferred to ignore the coach and remain on task when arguing, while the Australians opted to discuss the coach's feelings. Burke (1991) reported a study in which National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball officials were asked to rank their stressors. Coaches were listed as two of the top three stressors, and a total of six of the top 14 stressors that officials encounter (Rotella, McGuire, & Gansneder, 1985). Although the officials considered their role to be personally satisfying and rewarding, 90.6% reporte d their role to be stressful (43.5% = very stressful to stressful; 47.1% = moderately stressful).

Although previous studies have investigated stress and anxiety among sport officials either after the season or during the season, the purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of before, during, and after a basketball game among high school and college basketball officials. Gathering the officials' perceptions during an actual contest may allow more accurate perceptions of performance anxiety. Also, it is possible that officials may experience different levels of anxiety at different points in a basketball game. It was hypothesized that basketball officials would experience higher anxiety levels before and after a game than during the game. Before the game officials may be anxious about their impending performance, while after the game they may be anxious about the calls they should have made or were less certain of. Unlike before or after a game when officials can choose to think about a game for significant amounts of time, at half time there is less time (just 10-15 minutes) to focus on pos sible mistakes because attention will need to be redirected to officiating the remainder of the game. It was also hypothesized that officials' self-confidence scores would remain similar throughout the game because usually officials' only external support comes from their partners. Therefore, officials may need to exude more self-confidence in order to deal with the non-supportive environments in which they participate. Trait and state anxiety was expected to be lower for basketball officials when compared to norms provided in by Martens et al. (1990) due to age differences between the samples and the previous literature cited.

Method

Participants

The participants consisted of 25 male high school and college basketball officials from two southern states. The average age of the officials was 43.92 years, with an average of 18.80 years of high school and college basketball officiating experience.

Procedure and Inventories

All participants were volunteers who were allowed to participate only once in the study. The CSAI-2, which is a 27-item test that measures cognitive state anxiety, somatic state anxiety, and confidence on a 4-point Likert scale, was first administered to the officials. Scores on the CSAI-2 may range from 9 to 36 on each of the three subscales. The officials then completed the SCAT which is a 15-item questionnaire that asks them to respond on a 3-point ordinal scale how they "generally" feel when they are involved in sports. Scores may range from 10 (low competitive trait anxiety) to 30 (high competitive trait anxiety). As suggested by Martens, Vealey, and Burton (1990) all administrations of the CSAI-2 were completed before the SCAT was administered. Approximately one hour before each basketball game each official was asked to take part in the investigation. All officials who agreed to participate in the investigation then signed a consent form. Within 30 minutes of the start of the game, each official compl eted a demographic questionnaire, which also asked the officials to list their three primary reasons for becoming a basketball official. Then each participating official completed a basketball officiating-modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) (Martens et at., 1990 ). Besides making the questions on this inventory more specific for basketball, one question ("I am concerned about losing.") was deleted because it did not apply to officiating. According to Martens et al. (1990), the CSAI-2 is still valid when only one item per subscale is omitted. During the 10-minute half-time intermissions of each game, the modified CSAI-2 was again administered. Within 15 minutes after completion of the game the modified CSAI-2 was administered for the third time, and, a basketball officiating-modified version of the SCAT was given. Both the CSAI-2 and the SCAT have been shown to be reliable measures of state (cognitive & somatic) and trait anxiety, respectively (Martens et al., 1990).

Data Analysis

Repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine if significant changes in cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and self-confidence occurred for the basketball officials. One sample t-tests were used to compare the officials' data to previously developed CSAI-2 and SCAT norms.

Results

Data were analyzed for 25 male basketball officials. The average age of the officials was 43.92 [pm] 8.07 years with an average of 18.80 [pm] 6.63 years of experience officiating. Twenty-one of the 25 (84%) had obtained either a four-year degree or a master's degree and 22 of the 25 (88%) had officiated at the college level.

Located in Table 1 are the means and standard deviations for pre-game, halftime, and post-game measures for cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and confidence. As shown, the only significant differences found were a decrease in cognitive anxiety (p [less than] .05) from before the game to after the game and, from halftime to after the game. The pre-game measures were also compared to pre-game norms for basketball players for the CSAI-2 subscales (Marten et al., 1990). As anticipated, all of the pre-game measures were significantly different from the published norms (p [leq] .01).

The trait anxiety scores were compared to SCAT norms for basketball players because these norms were the most closely related norms provided by Martens et al. (1990). As hypothesized, the mean for the modified SCAT for the officials' responses (14.96"3.01) was significantly lower (p [less than] .001) than the norm for basketball players (19.77).

The reasons given for becoming a basketball official were compiled into a frequency distribution contained in Table 2. The following other reasons were given by one official each: ego, hobby, competition, decision making, link to sports, played basketball in college, get out of the house, and relaxation.

Discussion

The present data indicated that the officials reported feeling significantly less cognitive anxiety after a contest in comparison to before a contest and, after the game in comparison to halftime. Because the game and task is over for that particular assignment, this may seem like a natural conclusion. However, many responsible and experienced officials may be prone to fret after a game due to ruminating about the uncertain calls they made, or did not make, during the game. This may occur due to the nature of a basketball officiating assignment which is usually a fast paced, quick decision style task. Unlike some other sports where officials may be able to confer with each other (i.e., football) about a play, the majority of the calls in basketball are made individually, and in "split-second" time. However, the results from this study suggest that if basketball officials "replay" their performance after the game, it only causes very low anxiety.

There were no significant changes in self-confidence and somatic anxiety across the three testing administrations. Therefore it may be concluded that basketball officials remain relatively confident and experience low levels of physiological anxiety during an entire contest.

Because no anxiety norms were found for basketball officials, a comparison was made of the participants' perceptions in this investigation to the pre-contest (game) norms provided by the CSAI-2 for basketball players (Martens et al., 1990). The officials scored significantly lower on cognitive and somatic anxiety, and significantly higher on confidence. These results are in agreement with Gilbert, Trudel and Bloom (1995), Rainey and Hardy (1997), Rainey and Wintereich (1995), Stewart and Ellery (1996); findings that officials' perceptions of stress are low. The reasons for this finding in this current investigation may be due to the age and/or experience level of the officials in comparison to the (Martens et al., 1990) norms. The officials' average age (43.92 years) and experience level (18.80 years) was probably higher than the basketball players used in establishing the norms provided by Martens et al. (1990). The officials' wealth of experiences may provide the necessary development of coping strategies and adjustments to learn how to effectively cope with anxiety-producing situations. It is also possible that officials who find their sports role extremely anxiety producing may quit; which would preclude them from an investigation such as this.

The officials perceived low levels of state and trait anxiety while officiating. Cognitive anxiety decreased, although not significantly, across the three administrations. Also, somatic anxiety decreased from pre-game to halftime but increased from halftime to post-game.

The reasons basketball officials give for choosing to officiate basketball games are various. However approximately 70 % of all officials in this study mentioned they officiate basketball games for "the love of the game and exercise."

Some interesting conclusions may be drawn based upon the results of this and some of the previous recent literature on sports officials. One conclusion may be that officiating causes only low levels of anxiety. Or, officials may have effective coping strategies for dealing with anxiety-producing situations. Concluding that officials may have effective coping strategies may be more realistic in that numerous officiating organizations report that there is a shortage of officials in almost every sport. It may be the perception of persons who may be considering to attempt officiating that "refereeing, umpiring, or judging" a contest is too stressful or anxiety producing. As mentioned earlier, those who felt that officiating was too anxiety producing may have already withdrawn from the activity. It may be fruitful for future researchers to delve into the reasons sports enthusiasts choose not to enter into this challenging avocation or profession. It is also possible that officials may quit early (within the first five years) due to not yet developing the "tools" to handle this unique type of sport anxiety. Kaissidis and Anshel (1993) found that young basketball officials were significantly more stressed than older officials. Officiating is a unique type of anxiety in that officials almost never have anyone "cheering" for them. Athletes, usually, at least have the "home" crowd on their side. Officiating/umpiring/judging requires objective, impartial judgments. Coaches, athletes, and spectators usually are quite partial and subjective. Normally the only social support officials receive is from their partners.

Since this study surveyed officials with a significant amount of experience, future investigations should explore the perceptions of anxiety among less experienced officials. If learning to effectively handle anxious situations seems to be a major factor in the drop out of officials, this need may be dealt with more adequately by those who train or mentor younger officials. Due to the emphasis placed upon sport competition, it is easy to understand why researchers devote most of their time and efforts to coaches and athletes. It is hopeful that future investigators will continue to examine the challenging and unique role of sport officials.

References

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 Means and Standard Deviations for Pre-Game,
 Halftime, and Post-Game for Cognitive Anxiety,
 Somatic Anxiety, and Confidence for Basketball
 Officials
 Pre-Game Halftime Post-Game
Measure M SD M SD M SD
Cognitive Anxiety 15.28 [a] 4.48 13.28 [*] 4.86 12.52 [*] 3.90
Somatic Anxiety 13.24 [a] 3.84 11.52 2.52 12.40 3.23
Confidence 29.52 [a] 7.64 30.32 5.81 29.52 7.64

(*.)Significantly different from Pre-Game (p [less than] .05).

(a.)Significantly different from CSAI-2 norms for basketball players (p [less than] .01; Cognitive Anxiety M = 20.92, Somatic Anxiety M = 18.57, Confidence M = 24.64) (Martens et al., 1990).

 Frequency Distribution for Reasons for Choosing
 to Become a Basketball Official
Reason Frequency Percentage [a]
Love of the game 18 72%
Exercise 17 68%
Money 11 44%
Stay close to the game 6 24%
Like young kids 4 16%
Excitement 3 12%
Challenge 2 8%
Give back to the game 2 8%
Something they are good at 2 8%
(a.)Calculated as the frequency divided by the number of officials (N = 25).