Investigation of Trait Anxiety Levels and Problem-Solving Skills in Curling Athletes

In the sport of curling, called chess on the ice, the ability to stay calm for a long time and cognitive performance concepts are extremely important. The aim of this research is to investigate the trait anxiety levels and problem-solving skills of elite and amateur curling athletes. Sixty-nine athletes competing in the men and women categories in the 2021-2022 season in the Turkish Curling Super League were included in the study. In the study, the Trait Anxiety Scale was used to measure the anxiety level of the participants, and the Tower of London Test was used to measure the problem-solving skills of executive functions. While the Trait Anxiety Scale was administered with paper and pencil, the Tower of London Test was administered at Ataturk University Sports Sciences Application and Research Center using a desktop computer with Inquisit Player software. JASP 0.15.0.0 software was used for statistical analysis of the data. In the study, it was determined that the trait anxiety mean score of elite athletes (36.70 +/- 6.67) was statistically significantly lower than amateur athletes (55.41 +/- 6.51) (p < .05). It was determined that the Tower of London test error rate (1.35 +/- 1.76) and solution time (12.82 +/- 0.55) of elite athletes were statistically less than the test error rate (3.57 +/- 2.22) and solution time (15.42 +/- 1.17) of amateur athletes (p < .05). It was determined that the Tower of London Test total score of the elite athletes (82.76 +/- 6.73) was statistically significantly higher than the amateurs (52.88 +/- 8.04) (p < .05). As a result of the research, it was determined that elite curling athletes had less trait anxiety and their problem-solving skills were higher than amateur athletes.