There are many reasons why individuals are motivated to participate in sports. For athletes to participate in and keep up exercise, investigating the participation motivation of athletes is necessary. The aim of this study was to compare sport participation motivation of athletes in team and individual disciplines. The sample consisted of 265 athletes including four teams from football, volleyball, basketball, and handball and two individual disciplines of kung fu and taekwondo which were randomly selected. The 30-item sports participation motivation questionnaire (PMQ) was used. Analysis of data was conducted by the use of independent-samples t-test. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the sports participation motivation of athletes in a team and individual sports as well as between male and female athletes. But, among the components of the sports participation motivation, only the aspect of achievement in a team and individual sports and the aspect of finding friendship in male and female athletes existed, no other significant difference was observed. The results of this study show that sports discipline and the athlete’s gender is effective in motivating athletes’ continuation and commitment to a physical activity.

The authors' main purpose was to determine whether learning of a real-world sport skill (basketball free throws) is specific to the sources of afferent visual information available during practice. Twenty-eight male high school students (inexperienced in the experimental task) were randomly assigned to a full vision or target only vision group. Participants trained under full vision or target only condition for 15 sessions. Following training, in immediate tests, they were examined under full vision and then under target only conditions. Ten days later, in delayed tests, they performed the task under full vision and then under target only conditions. Results showed both groups performed the task similarly across the experimental period. Interestingly, it was found that immediate and delayed retention performance is specific to the training visual context. The groups' performances dropped significantly when we tested them at a visual condition that differed from what they had experienced while learning the task. Performance of the task seemed to have integrated with the visual information available during the task acquisition. These findings provide evidence for the specificity of practice hypothesis in the field of motor learning and control.

Basketball PerformanceThree-Point Shoot Mental FatigueBackground: Mental fatigue is a psychobiological state caused by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of mental fatigue on three-point shots in skilled basketball players. Methods: This study was semi-experimental. For this purpose, 18 male experienced basketball players were selected by convenience sampling and randomly divided into experimental and control groups (control: n=9, experimental: n=9). Participants in the experimental group experienced mental fatigue using strop software and math tests, but the control group did not perform any specific cognitive tasks during this time. Visual Analog Scale and three-point shots were used as a pretest and posttest. For data analyzing, the SPSS 25 was applied, and the significance level was considered at (p<0/05). Results:The results of the study illustrated that spatial working memory played a predictive role in selected attention (same color and font, and different color and font) and performance accuracy; Moreover, mathematical working memory played a predictive role in selected attention (same color and font, and different color and font). However, it did not have a predictive role in performance accuracy. Conclusion:The result of this study supports the theory that mental fatigue had impact on athletic performance. It is suggested that basketball players and coaches consider mental fatigue in sports performance.

While past research has shown the benefits of preperformance routines (PPRs) on athletes’ performances, only a few studies have addressed PPR effects on novices’ learning or performance. This study investigated the effect of motor-mental PPR on learning the basketball free throw. We categorized 45 undergraduate male students into three 15-session training groups receiving (a) a five-step PPR based on Singer’s model, (b) a self-regulation PPR, and (c) no PPR, but only a basketball free throw performance (control group). One week later, we conducted retention and transfer testing. A repeated measures analysis of variance and two-way mixed design analysis of variance showed that, in the acquisition and test phases, the five-step PPR group performed better than the other two groups ( p < .001), and there was no significant difference between the self-regulation PPR and control groups. The results also showed that, in accordance with the specificity of practice hypothesis, participants’ performance decreased significantly on transfer testing when PPR was removed from the experimental groups. A well-guided motor-mental PPR was superior to a self-regulated PPR for novices learning this basketball skill, probably because it increased the participants’ concentration during acquisition and helped them learn it as part of a motor pattern.