This paper investigates the effects of goal-setting training on the football passing competencies of students enrolled in the Bayelsa State Sports Academy. The study aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on sports psychology and athlete development by assessing the effectiveness of a structured goal-setting intervention in enhancing passing skills in the context of football training. A pre-test and post-test design was employed to assess passing competencies among students in Bayelsa State Sports Academy before and after the goal-setting training intervention. 40 JSS1 students of the Bayelsa State Sports Academy were drawn from the class register comprising of JSSI A-C using the purposive sampling technique. The instrument that was used for data collection of this study was the observation schedule. Scoring was based on number of successful performances made out of (3) attempts by each of the participants for push pass, long pass, diagonal pass and backward pass. The descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were utilized in answering research question while the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with a significance level of.05 was utilized to test hypothesis. The study concluded that there is a statistically significant effect of goal-setting training on football passing competencies among students in the Bayelsa State Sports Academy and through the implementation of a structured goal-setting intervention, participants exhibited notable improvements in their passing skills, as evidenced by the quantitative and qualitative data collected.
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