Date of Graduation

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

Committee Chair

Edward Etzel

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of three types of goal setting: performance goals, process goals and no goals, on a racquetball skill task, competitive state anxiety, and goal commitment. Forty college undergraduate students enrolled in racquetball classes were randomly assigned to one of three goal setting groups. Performance and anxiety were evaluated over two competitions conducted over a five week period. The instruments used were the Modified CSAI-2 (Jones & Swain, 1992) for anxiety, the Goal Commitment Questionnaire (Filby et al., 1999) for commitment and a goal manipulation check to measure goal setting changes. Participants were provided with goal setting instruction appropriate to their group, engaged in a competition, reevaluated the goals they had previously set, and engaged in another competition. There were no significant findings. Several limitations including length of study and the nature of the sample utilized were discussed. Future research directions for examining different types of goal setting on performance and anxiety were offered.

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