Habilidad física percibida en nadadores de competición brasileños

Resum

Self-efficacy expectations are the beliefs in our capabilities to succesfully perform a given task or behavior. The Bandura´s self-efficacy theory may be applied to a large number of sport situations. The aim of our research was to investigate percieved physical ability in Brazilian swimmers and to analyze differences mediated by gender, category, competitieve level and years of experience. The subscale of Perceived Physical Ability of the Self-efficacy Scale by Ryckman et al. (1982), composed by 10 items (General Physical Ability) was used. Six items specific for swimming were added (Specific Physical Ability; Salguero et al., 2003). Participants were 425 swimmers (138 females and 287 males) of different competitive categories with a mean age of 14 years. Findings showed that males obtain higher scores compared to females; that values are higher for swimmers in lower categories; and that swimmers with a higher competitive level reach higher values for general perceived physical ability. In conclusion, the analysis showed that gender, age and competitive level are significantly related to scores for self-efficacy.