Introduction

Sports psychology is a new branch of the sport science that in recent years has been of interest to athletes and sports coaches, dramatically. First, all efforts in this area focused on the heroes, but in recent years this trend has changed and sport psychology considers also professional men and women heroes as well as the participants in the non-professional activities. In other words, the purpose of sport psychologists helps athletes in all age groups, from teenagers to adults) Standage et al, 2012). Today, experts of exercise physiology are using from psychology exercises to help participants in cardiac rehabilitation programs in order to they overcome their fear for the resumption and start training. The teachers also using sports psychology knowledge teach their students the method of effects of environmental practices that improve the run. Those involved in the teams of young using sports psychology knowledge to ensure positive experiences by the young athletes and finally the coach’s use techniques of sports psychology such as emotional control, mental imagery, goal setting and motivation in all levels to help athletes improve their performances. Now, with the advancement of the science of sport psychology, the mental skills are very important in the implementation of sporty performance and whereas previously was emphasized the importance of physical preparation Today the heroes are more and more emphasis on psychological preparation. Their experiences indicate that when they compete with par heroes physically on big fields the mental preparation will determine to win the victory of one of the parties ) Bartholomew et al, 2011). Top coaches as well as are aware of aspects of psychological preparation and the necessity of its preparation during training and allocate a part of preparation program to mental preparation. Sports commentators assume that exercise can help young players educate power, self-esteem, how to walk, communicate with others and experience to learn difficult objectives but today we know that this capability do not spontaneously reached maximum growth whereas the athletes should be trained and practicing the psychological skills (Ingledew and Markland 2008).

Psychological preparation is largely neglected despite the recognition of the importance of mental training and sports psychology. This can have multiple reasons. For example, some researchers thought that no access to sport psychology services is the main reasons for non-compliance with the athletic trainers and sports psychologists (Liu et al, 2011, Rodney, 2010). Another factor that has been considered by researchers as a factor influencing the on level of cooperation instructional coaches and psychologists sports coach’s attitude towards sports psychology. Attitude more is a collection of coherent ideas that is usually associated with complex mental issues (Sebire et al, 2013). Coach’s attitude towards sport psychology is very important because the decisions of coaches that is effective in the athletes benefiting from sport psychology services and mental exercises. Some researches in this regard stated that there is meaningful relationship between the attitude of coaches and athletes than athletes Premier League lower levels toward the place of counseling psychology and its association with sporting success. Premier League coaches and athletes were assumed more important role for sport psychology (Jafari et al, 2010).

The result of this research and many other similar studies had referred to important role of attitude, knowledge and experience of trainers about sports psychology on the use of sport psychology services and mental counseling. The attitude and the knowledge and experience of the coaches about sports psychology is important that despite realize the importance of these services to the success of athletes and sports teams, sports psychology is in our country still confined to internal debate of mainly university classrooms and in practice so will not be considered. Thus investigating attitude, knowledge and experience of coaches to these services can guide us toward reaching to sufficient strategies in order to optimal use of these services.

Based on the mentioned material, the purpose of this study was attitude, knowledge and experience of Karate instructor Federation Islamic Republic of Iran towards counseling psychology.

Methods

In terms of method this research was descriptive research and in terms of objective was practical and prospective study.

Participants and Sample

The population of this study was male or female karate coaches who had the coaching Cards 1 and 2 of the Karate Federation and had participated in the championship race of championship races, championship of adolescents and young people under 21 years, national team qualifiers and teams participating in Premier League from this population 150 coaches (75women and 75 men) were selected voluntarily and purposeful.

Measuring Tool

1. The individual features form: this form was used to obtain individual information such as age, gender, sport, coaching experience and education.

2. The research questionnaire Sports coaches on sports psychology: to measure knowledge, experience and attitude of coaches toward sport psychology the questionnaire research on sport psychology coaches were used. The questionnaire consists of three parts. The first part related to the experience that is measured as quality by the 10 questions, the minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 10.the second part related to knowledge that is measured by 24 items using 7 likret response which that the minimum score is 24 and maximum score is 168.the third part related to attitude that is measured by 14 items using likret scale 7 level (strongly disagree to strongly agree) that the minimum score is 14 and the maximum score is 98 (appendix B)

The Internal Consistency

Cronbach’s Alpha test results were used to assess the internal consistency of the questionnaire. The internal consistency of questionnaire was 0.85 and the first and second factors were 0.88 and 0.65 respectively.

The scholar to collect data referred to Karate Federation Islamic Republic of Iran after the acquisition the introducing letter of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences Islamic Azad University of Karaj and gathered some information about the time of holding national competitions. Before the measurement variables, the researcher introduced himself to the participants and some information was given to them about the purpose of the study. Then, according to the instructions the questionnaires were distributed among the participants by researchers at the right time for completing. The researcher while provided explanations about the questionnaire demanded them in his presence completes the questionnaires and returns to them, thus the researcher within three weeks collected all the necessary information.

Statistical Methods

Data analysis was performed in descriptive and inferential statistics. In the description level the indicators of mean and standard deviation were used to draw charts. In Inferential statistics, using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S), the normality of the data was analyzed, Then two variable Pearson correlation coefficient test were used for calculating relationship between knowledge and experience with educators' attitudes towards sport psychology and independent t-test was used to compare variables between the two groups. The significantly for all statistical methods was considered P≤0.05. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 16.

Results

Descriptive data (mean ± SD) of three variables: knowledge, attitude and experience to distinguish the studied groups (youth, adults, men and women) are presented in Table 1. As shown in Table 1 the mean knowledge, attitude and experience in adolescents, respectively equals to 128.187±13.585, 74.065±12.623 and 6.565±2.118 and in the adults equals to 115.459±13.379, 65.918±14.474 and 6.500±1.98.also the mean of knowledge, attitude and experience in men equals to 120.146, 68.586±16.292 and 6.586±2.047 and women equals to 123.640±12.274, 71.506±11.490 and 6.480±2.055.

The results of correlation analysis showed that there is significant correlation between experience and attitude toward sport psychology counseling (P=0.001). Table 2 has shown results of correlation test between experience and attitude to the counseling.

Also results of the present study showed that there is positive and significant correlation between the karate instructor knowledge and attitudes toward sport psychology counseling (P=0.001). The results of the correlation between teachers’ knowledge and attitude to Psychological counseling are provided in Table 3.

Finally the results of the present study showed that there is a significant difference between adult and youth coach attitudes towards sports counseling psychology (P=0.001). In other words, the positive attitude of young coach is significantly more than adult coach’s. Results related to adult educators and young people's attitudes are presented in Table 5.

Discussion and Conclusion

The aim of this study was to examine the experience, knowledge and attitude of Karate Federation Islamic Republic of Iran coaches towards counseling of sport psychology. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the karate instructor experience and their attitude towards sport psychology. In other words, coaches who have experience in the field of psychology had more positive attitudes toward sport psychology. The reason for this discrepancy could be due to the different population. In Nelson study athletes were selected as population as yet in our study population the coaches were included. Taken together, these findings suggest that exposure to such positive data showing psychological services can help to improve attitudes towards sport psychology. In general it can be concluded that trainers with previous experience and exposure to sport psychology, have clearer understanding of the services provided by the sport psychology and have more confidence in the role of sport psychology in sports environments. Another finding showed that there is a significant relationship between karate instructor knowledge and attitudes toward sport psychology this means that coaches who had followed courses related to sport psychology had a more positive attitude towards sport psychology. They showed that if sport psychologists have an understanding of the psychological needs of athletes and can provide the necessary information in time for coaches then sport psychology science would benefit theoretically and practically. According to the results the present study and other studies in this field can be concluded that athletes who have prior knowledge about the sport psychology professionals are more likely to have positive attitudes towards counseling that their trend to seek advice in the future is more. According to what was said can be concluded that knowledge of coaches about sports psychology can have a positive attitude towards sport psychology.

The results also showed that there is no significant difference between male and female karate instructor attitudes towards sport psychology. A result of present research about difference attitude of men and women toward sport psychology counseling was consistent almost with many conducted studies. In this regard results of present study were not consistent with results of Philip et al (2012). The results of their study showed that men had less tend and more negative attitudes toward the use of counseling psychology compared with women. The results of this study showed that there is a difference between young adult’s attitudes of teachers towards sports psychology that is the younger teachers were more positive attitude towards sports psychology.

Chatzisarantis and Hagger (2009) reported a relationship between age and attitudes mental health services. So that positive attitudes towards mental health services will enhance with age. In addition, older adults (over 65 years) are supported to have further steps toward improving the mental health of young people but few people of older have supported more than younger adults requested technical assistance which confirming the results of the present study. These findings argue that although older adults want to improve their mental health to ask for help from unofficial sources unofficial sources such as friends and family. It is noteworthy that there is no significant differences between age groups due to the importance of access to mental services. Recently, Julia et al (2010) suggested that the attitudes and perceptions of broad age groups have changed in recent decades. Using a longitudinal design of the time delay, researchers were examined approaches and attitudes towards older adult psychiatry in 1977, 1991 and 2001. Younger adults in two data points were examined: 1991 and 2000. On the other hand, a series of investigations have concluded that older adults than younger people had much more negative view of mental health professionals to seek services (Owen et al, 2013). With regard to the contradictory findings in the field, the final conclusions in this case will require more research.

Reviews results show that there is a significant relationship between experience and knowledge of coaches and their attitude toward sport psychology. As well as there is no difference between male and female attitudes towards sports psychology but younger coaches have a more positive attitude towards sport psychology than older coaches. Since there are common concerns among coaches and athletes perhaps the presence of sport psychology to be effective in reducing stresses and achieves the desired result for athletes and coaches.

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