Dispositional Flow State among Open Skill Athletes: A Predictor and Quantification of Sport Performance

Abstract

The present study was aimed to identify the role of Dispositional Flow Scale-2 (DFS-2) among open skill athletes. In order to achieve the objective of the study, Sixty (N=60) male university level open skill athletes of 19 to 25 years of age were selected to act as a subject. A prior consent was sought from all the subjects after being informed about the objective and protocol of a study. The sixty (N=60) subjects were segregated into three groups i.e. N 1 = 20 Basketball, N 2 =20 Handball, N 3 =20 Football. To measure the level of Flow of the subjects, the Dispositional Flow Scale-2 (DFS-2) Questionnaire constructed by Jackson and Eklund (2004) was administered. One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to compare various sports groups i.e. open skill athletes. Where ‘F’ values were found significant, LSD (Least Significant Difference) Post-hoc test was applied to find out the direction and degree of differences. For testing the hypothesis, the level of significance was set at 0.05. Significant differences were found among various sport groups (basketball, handball, and football) on the sub-variables of DFS-2 i.e. unambiguous feedback, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness and overall dispositional flow scale-2. However, no significant differences were found on the sub-variables of DFS-2 i.e. challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, concentration on the task at hand, transformation of time and autotelic experience.