Effects of imagery training to improve the quality of athletes' swimming skills: a mixed research method

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effect of implementing Imagery training towards the quality of swimming skills among athletes through mixed research method.
 Material and methods. This study adopted a quantitative and qualitative research (mixed research method). The participants involved in this study were beginner athletes from the Tirta Prima Medan Swimming Association (n=20) (Indonesia). Participants were divided into two groups, namely experimental group which consisted of 5 males and 5 females (age: 16.06±2.3 years, weight: 50.78±6.5 kg, height: 1.60±0.5 cm) and the control group which consisted of 5 males and 5 females (age: 16.57±0.9 years, weight: 51.65±5.8 kg, height: 1.61±0.3 cm). The quantitative instruments included tests for freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly swimming style while the qualitative instruments included in-depth interviews. Quantitative statistical analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS, included: normality, mean and standard deviation. The differences of values in the experimental and control groups before and after the experiment was analyzed through the independent sample t-test and Paired sample t-test. While qualitative study used thematic analysis included recording, coding and categorized into three themes.
 Results The quantitative study results showed several findings. First, there was no difference in the scores of swimming skills before the experiment between the experimental and control groups (p≥0.05). Second, there was differences in the scores of swimming skills between the experimental and control groups after the experiment (p≤0.05). Third, the experimental group had a significant effect to improve the quality of swimming skills (p≤.05). On the contrary, the control group only had an effect on improving the quality of freestyle swimming skills (p≤0.05), but it had not affect in other styles (p≥0.05). Qualitative findings showed that participants considered that Imagery training has the advantage to recreate the training experience in the brain, however it would not be effective if athletes had weak memory abilities and it had a positive impact on improving the quality of swimming skills.
 Conclusions: This study concluded that Imagery training was effective to improve the quality of athletes' swimming skills.