Performance and cognitions of female soccer players in two sessions with ecological and cognitive methodology

Abstract

This work analyzed the effects of two sessions, an ecological and a cognitive one. They were about the flow state, anxiety, actual and perceived performance, sports satisfaction and the basic psychological needs, and insight into demand and game fatigue experienced by female soccer players It was used a unifactorial intrasubject process exchange design with performance measures during the session and self-referential measures after the intervention. The intervention was carried out with two amateur women's soccer teams of regional category. Each one was divided into 2 subgroups by means of balanced blocking according to the role of the game and the level of sports ability. Each group carried in a session, the ecological intervention and in another one, the cognitive intervention, in reverse order. The inferential analysis of the individual scores was accomplished by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and that of the collective performance with the Mann-Whitney U test, in the absence of adjustment to the normality of the scores. The results showed higher perceptions of flow, individual and group sports performance, sports satisfaction, basic psychological needs and physical effort, as well as lower perception of anxiety with the ecological methodology session. Likewise, a higher final performance and an increase in the number of lateral passes were also obtained with the use of the same methodology, both facets of the game were considered positive.