Mental Fitness and Attentional Control and Their Relationship to High Dribbling and Chest Pass Skills in Basketball Among Female Students

Abstract

Our contemporary world is experiencing continuous scientific, cognitive, and technological progress across various fields, including sport. These advances result from effective planning and sustained efforts to enhance the quality of teaching, learning, and training processes to reach higher levels of athletic performance. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between mental fitness, which refers to the learner’s strength and ability to adapt to surrounding conditions, and attentional control, which reflects the ability to select relevant stimuli and disregard irrelevant ones, and the performance of two basketball skills: high dribbling and chest passing.

The researchers hypothesized that there would be significant correlations between the outcomes of the Mental Fitness Scale, the Attentional Control Scale, and the performance of high dribbling and chest passing. The study sample included 63 first-year female students from the College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences for Women during the academic year 2024–2025. The descriptive survey method was used because it was suitable for addressing the study objectives.

Field procedures involved administering the Mental Fitness Scale and the Attentional Control Scale. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), and the analysis included the mean, standard deviation, median, skewness coefficient, and correlation coefficients. The results showed statistically significant correlations between mental fitness, attentional control, and the performance of high dribbling and chest passing. Based on these findings, the study recommends using both scales as assessment criteria for female students in the basketball course.