Abstract
Research investigating sport officials has examined their personality, the effect of audience presence on refereeing behaviours, and decision making (Askins et al., 1981; Brand et al., 2006). However, very little research has examined the psychological skills used by sport officials, despite its importance in the performance enhancement of athletes. This is somewhat surprising given the Cornerstones Performance Model of Refereeing identifies psychological skills as key in optimizing refereeing performance (Mascarenhas et al., 2005). The present study examined the psychological skills most frequently utilized by officials and whether there were differences between high (officiating varsity and higher) and low (officiating high school and lower) level officials. Participants were 450 Canadian male basketball officials who completed the Test of Performance Strategies (Thomas et al., 1999). The results indicated that basketball officials reported using psychological skills most to maintain their emotional control (M = 3.90) and least to help them relax (M = 2.80). With respect to differences in level of officiating, an overall effect was found (F (1, 449) = 6.21, p < .001, ?2= .10) with higher level officials reporting higher frequency of self-talk, emotional control, automaticity, imagery, activation, and negative thoughts than their lower level counterparts. Implication of these results is discussed.
