Music and traditional archery: Ünlü 2022 study

Thirty-six traditional archers (16 men and 20 women) competing in the finals of the Turkish senior championship, 2020-2021 season, filled in a questionnaire on the effect of music in sport while listening to it during the competition. The scale has 18 items scored from 1 to 5, split into motivation (5 items), physical strength and performance (6) and psychological resilience (7). The means sit slightly below the midpoint of the scale: 2.93 for motivation, 2.63 for strength and performance, 2.57 for resilience and 2.69 overall, with medians close to 3.

Men and women, and income bands, do not differ. Archers with a university education (21) score higher than those who stopped at secondary school (15) for motivation (3.35 against 2.35), strength and performance (3.11 against 1.96) and the total (3.08 against 2.14). The 10 archers who also listen to music in training, 28%, score higher than the other 26: motivation 4.16 against 2.46, strength and performance 3.33 against 2.36, total 3.41 against 2.41. The 7 who train in a small district town give music more weight for motivation (4.20) than those training in a large metropolitan area (2.65) or a city (2.58). Finally, more hours of training a day go with lower scores, with correlations between -0.379 and -0.418.

This is a one-off questionnaire survey. The scale is Karayol and Turhan's (2020), designed to be completed at three points (before, during and after the activity): here it was used only during. Internal reliability in the sample is high, with Cronbach's alpha between 0.92 and 0.97. As the data were not normally distributed, groups were compared with non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis) and relationships with Spearman's correlation.

Daily training time had only two values, 2 hours for 69% of the archers and 3 hours for 31%. Ages were collected in bands: 22% aged 15 to 17, 33% aged 20 to 30, 45% aged 31 and over.

The study does not measure shooting and does not compare competing with and without music: everyone answered while listening, so the scale records how much effect the archers feel, not the effect itself. The paper does not say what music it was, how it could be listened to during a championship final, or at what point in the competition the questionnaire was completed. Means below the midpoint of the scale show that, as a group, these archers credited music with a modest effect.

The subgroups are tiny (7 archers in district towns, 10 who listen to music in training), there are many comparisons and nothing corrects for them. The correlation with training time rests on a variable that can only be 2 or 3. There are statistical typos: thresholds written as "p < 0.5" and a value of 0.23 which, with r of -0.379 and 36 archers, should be 0.023. Ethics approval is dated 22 December 2021, while the competitions belong to the 2020-2021 season: the paper does not say when the data were collected. The explanations offered, such as city dwellers becoming desensitised to music, are the authors' hypotheses, and the abstract's statement that listening to music in training increases motivation and performance goes beyond a cross-sectional survey. The journal is flagged for questionable editorial standards.

The study gives no indication either way on whether music helps anyone shoot. What it shows is simpler: traditional archers who already use music in training say they feel its effect more in competition too, which reflects habit and preference. Overall, at or slightly below the middle of the scale, these archers did not credit music with an important role. Anyone curious about trying music before or during shooting will find here neither a reason to do so nor a reason to avoid it.