Analysis of Article on Fear of Failure in Football Academies

This report analyzes an article published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, focusing on the fear of failure among adolescent male football players in English academies. The study, involving 81 participants aged 16-18, aimed to examine the dimensions and levels of fear related to failure in the game and evaluate the experiences of players reporting high fear. The research utilized The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI) to assess fear levels, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings highlight the prevalence of failure-related fears, its impact on performance, and associated psychological impacts like anxiety and depression. The study's methodology, including the use of face-to-face interviews, enhanced the reliability of the results. The report also discusses the importance of understanding and addressing fear of failure to improve the performance and psychological well-being of young athletes.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF ARTICLE
Analysis of Article
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Aim of the Study
This present study mainly has two aims and the first one is to examine the dimensions
and levels of fear regarding being failure in the games among the players. The second aim of
the study is to evaluate the experiences of the players who had reported high level of fear
regarding being failure during the survey (Sagar, Busch and Jowett 2010).
Source of the Paper
The study was conducted in an English football academies and the paper is published
in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (Sagar, Busch and Jowett 2010).
Rationale of the Study
The study revealed that issue of failure related fears among the players is very
common among the players and thus it affects the performances of the players as well.
Therefore, it can be stated that it is important to assess the level of fears among the football
players so that the performance levels of those players can be improved by lowering the
levels of fear. Moreover, the phenomenon of avoiding failure is associated with the
anticipatory shame among the players. Moreover, in this study, it was also observed that
presence of fear among the players is associated with the negative psychological impact such
as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and physical impact in the field. Moreover, it is also
true that the number of sports related research is also low in numbers and so the area is
mostly unexplored (Sagar, Busch and Jowett 2010).
Data Collection
In this study approximately 81 male players were recruited as study population from
four different football academies located in Northern and Southern region of England. All of
the participants were under the age group of 16 years to 18 years and they were playing

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footballs for at least 8-12 year time period. The quantitative data were collected in phase 1 of
the study and The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI) was used to examine the
levels and dimensions of fear related to failure in the play grounds. In this study the PFAI has
used as an important diagnostic tool and this tool helped to identify levels of fears among the
players in a proper manner (Sagar, Busch and Jowett 2010).
Instruments
For this study, the researchers used a the checklist ranging from 0 to 5 to collect the
data from the players and each of the players took almost 10 minutes to complete the
measures in their academies. The overall scores were evaluated for each of the subscales
present in PFAI and from this score an overall fear score was also evaluated (Sagar, Busch
and Jowett 2010).
Discussion of Methodology
Application of both quantitative and qualitative study design is very much
advantageous for this type of study as this mixed method helped to identify the actual
experiences of the players having fear in during their game. Therefore, it can be stated that
the use of mixed method study enhanced the reliability of the study as well (Morse 2016).
Moreover, the face to face interview sessions with the footballers helped the researchers to
find the actual level of fears during their game and so it can be stated that the obtained result
is very much reliable.

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References
Morse, J.M., 2016. Mixed method design: Principles and procedures. Routledge.
Sagar, S.S., Busch, B.K. and Jowett, S., 2010. Success and failure, fear of failure, and coping
responses of adolescent academy football players. Journal of Applied Sport
Psychology, 22(2), pp.213-230.

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