Young compound archers compared: Mat Salleh 2023

Twenty compound archers aged 13 to 21, all on their Malaysian state teams, were split into two groups of ten according to their score over 36 arrows at 50 metres: 320 to 339 points for the intermediate group, 340 to 360 for the group the authors call elite. Before shooting they filled in a competitive anxiety questionnaire, during the round they wore a heart rate monitor, and as soon as they finished their blood oxygen saturation was taken with a finger pulse oximeter.

The mean score was 329.6 for the intermediate archers and 341.8 for the elite, a gap that follows from how the groups were formed. Of the other measures, only saturation differed significantly: 98.5% in the intermediate group, 96.9% in the elite. The elite archers had slightly lower cognitive anxiety (9.8 against 10.9), somatic anxiety (11.0 against 11.6) and heart rate (96.5 against 98.5 beats per minute), and higher self-confidence (16.4 against 13.6), but none of these differences passed the statistical threshold. Across all 20 archers, self-confidence was the only measure linked to score (r = 0.56); somatic anxiety (-0.40) and saturation (-0.39) pointed the other way without reaching significance.

Measurements were taken during an ordinary training session at the archers' own centre. To take part, archers needed at least two years of competition with their state team and at national championships. The sequence was fixed: first the CSAI-2R questionnaire in its Malay version (five items on cognitive anxiety, seven on somatic anxiety and five on self-confidence, each answered from 1 to 4), then the Polar S710i chest strap, a warm-up, two sighting ends, two minutes to get ready and six ends of six arrows at 50 metres, with heart rate recorded throughout. The pulse oximeter (MeasuPro OX250) went on the right index finger straight after the last end. The target face is not stated.

The authors compared the two groups with independent-samples t tests and calculated correlations between each measure and score across all 20 archers.

The groups were formed using the very score that is then compared, so the points gap between intermediate and elite archers is not a finding but the definition of the groups. With ten archers on each side and ages from 13 to 21, small differences in anxiety or heart rate could not have shown up, and the paper does not give the age, sex or experience of each group, any of which could account for part of what is seen. Saturation was taken once, after the round, and the paper does not explain how a difference of 1.6 percentage points might affect the shot. The competitive anxiety questionnaire, moreover, was filled in at training.

Some figures in the table do not add up: for self-confidence a t of -1.94 is reported with p = 0.68, whereas with 18 degrees of freedom it should be close to 0.07; for heart rate the table gives t = -0.54 and p = 5.96, which is not a possible value. The text refers to a Spearman correlation and the table to Pearson, and the last row of the table correlates the 50 metre score with itself (0.68). The abstract presents the link with self-confidence as stronger among the elite, but it was only calculated on all 20 together. The conclusions also waver: the abstract speaks of lower values in the elite group, the discussion of an increase in every variable.

For compound archers the study adds little: the archers who scored more at 50 metres also reported more self-confidence, and confidence was the only measure linked to score. Which comes first is unknown, since archers who shoot better have good reason to feel confident, and a comparison made on a single day cannot separate the two directions.

On anxiety and heart rate, the study does not allow anyone to say that stronger archers are calmer: the differences were small and within the play of chance, even though the authors read them as a trend in their conclusions. The oxygen figure, lower in the elite group, is left unexplained in the paper and points to nothing to change in training. In the registry it counts as a small comparison of young compound archers, a division that has still been studied very little.