ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Naji   A. (1)
Rahimian Boogar   I. (*)
Talepasand   S. (2)






(*) Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
(1) Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
(2) Department of Educational Sciences and Exceptional Children Education, Psychology & Educational Sciences Faculty, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Faculty of Psychology & Educational Sciences, Semnan University, Darband, Mehdishahr, Semnan, Iran
Phone: +98 (23) 33624250
Fax: +98 (23) 33626888
i_rahimian@semnan.ac.ir

Article History

Received:  July  22, 2017
Accepted:  November 11, 2017
ePublished:  June 3, 2018

BRIEF TEXT


Cognitive readiness is a kind of mental readiness containing skill, knowledge, ability, motivation and individual tendencies that each person requires them to maintain the qualified performance in complex and unpredictable military environments [1, 2]. … [3-5].

Jang et al. have stated that in sports like football and hockey, the importance of situational awareness is greatly observable in selection and termination of the game. By increasing the situational awareness, the person can have better action with the same effort [6]. In this respect, researchers have taught the situational awareness briefly to police shooters and they have seen more success [7]. In a research, the positive and significant correlation between situational awareness and decision making has been reported [8]. …[9, 10]. Rahimi and Jokar [11] in their research have concluded that cognitive procedures, especially analytic decision making, are affected by excited moods, motivational situation (cognitive styles) and metacognitive tendencies. The relation among level of metacognition, decision making, problem solving and control resource has been investigated in a research. In this research, it has been specified that metacognition can be anticipator and mediator of decision making [12]. As well, in a research, through training metacognitive skills they have found out that this training can facilitate the process of clinical decision making [13]. … [14]. Many researches have referred to this truth that skill and athletic performance of an individual can be progressed by increasing the metacognitive awareness [15-19]. … [16-30].

Cognitive readiness can reduce the human errors and as well increase the performance. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectivity of training cognitive readiness on decision making skill and shooting performance of militaries in 2 groups with and without anxiety.

This research is a semi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and control group.

This research was conducted among all students of one of the military universities in Tehran, Iran, who passed the unit of physical education in the second half of the education year 2016-17.

Through purposeful sampling method, 68 people (34 in anxiety mood and 34 without anxiety mood) were chosen as the sample.

In order to gather data, the Cox Competitive State Anxienty Inventory with reliability coefficient 0.89 and California critical thinking questionnaire with reliability coefficient 0.78 were used. Before starting the training interventions from all examinees, a one-hour pretest was taken and the state-competitive anxiety and decision making were measured. All groups were participated in introduction session to the class and theoretical and practical training of shooting, and in next session, the shooting test was carried out as a pretest. The examination groups spent 9 sessions of cognitive readiness training (a one-hour session per week) (Table 1). Finally, all groups were evaluated in terms of state-competitive anxiety, decision making and shooting and their scores were considered as the posttest scores. Each examinee was optional to participate in research and written satisfaction were taken from them. Before beginning the study and despite of maintaining one succor of research, confidentiality of information and individual data were explained for all examinees. Data were analyzed by using variance analysis, repeated measurement in form of SPSS 19 software. The default conditions including inequality of covariance was analyzed by Mbox test, normal distribution of data was reviewed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and equality of variances were examined by Leven test.

13 people of research examinees were in second year of university education (19%), 46 people in third year (67%) and 8 people in fourth year (12%). The hypothesis of covariance inequality was confirmed by regarding to significance of MBox test (p<0.001). Moreover, the normality conditional of data distribution and variances equality was established. The effect of group’s difference in average of scores for shooting and decision making skills were 99% significant (p<0.001) (Table 2). Anxiety had considerable effect on making difference among defined groups (Figure 1).

In this research, the effectivity of cognitive readiness on improvement of decision making and shooting was confirmed. On the other hand, anxiety had considerable effect on making difference between groups. These findings are aligned with the findings of articles [6-30]. …[31-40].

It is suggested that in future researches other age ranges (more than 30 years) and people with monthly experience in shooting and with higher military rank are used. Moreover, simulations software of shooting and military situations are used to evaluate cognitive readiness in order to increase accuracy in computing points. Besides, physical readiness factors especially factor of power and balance are captured and compared simultaneously with shooting. In addition, it is suggested that regarding to the necessity of having psychological (mental) knowledge which are effective on individual’s skill and attitude, cognitive readiness measurement and training are performed. As well, since the aware attention to present time will lead to increase in awareness of internal, external and motion signs and reduce individual concerns, this concept is trained to shooters.

Among the limitations of present research, we can refer to the age range of participants in this research that was limited to 19-24 youths, and this can lead to bias of results. Another limitation is to use air gun as a kind of war shooting simulators which has less accuracy than the instruments dependent on software in estimating the scores.

Cognitive readiness in two groups of with state anxiety and without anxiety is effective on improvement of decision making and shooting skill which are the important military skills. Training the shooting skill depends on psychic skills despite the previous imagination.

The researchers of this survey gives thanks to the respected personnel of graduate studies of university and as well, all authorities and participants of this research.

This research is originated from the thesis of masters in clinical psychological major in Semnan University, Iran, in No. 7571.

The present research has been registered in ethical committee of university medical science in Semnan University, Iran, with Number IR.SEMUMS.1396.15 in date 1396/2/31. Moreover, the present research with code of IRCT2016121331398N1 has been registered in clinical trial center.

All its financial costs have been supplied by the personal sources of researchers.


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