EVALUATING PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS AND GOAL COMMITMENT AMONG ORIENTEERING ATHLETES

Orienteering is a nature sport that is performed by running, skiing, riding bikes or in other forms and is based on physical and mental efforts and in orienteering reaching correct goal quickly is important. This study aims at evaluating problem solving skills and goal commitment among orienteering athletes. 145 orienteering athletes aged between 18 and 27 were recruited for the study. In order to determine problem solving skills of orienteering athletes, “Problem Solving Inventory” that was designed by Heppner and Peterson (1982) skills and Turkish adaptation of which was done by Şahin and Heppner (1993) was used. In order to explore goal commitment of orienteering athletes, “Goal Commitment Scale” that was developed by Hollenbeck, Williams and Klein (1989) and Turkish adaptation of which was done by Şenel and Yıldız (2016) was used in the study. For the analyses of the data; frequency analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, Mann Whitney–U Test and Kruskal Wallis–H Test for comparing more than two independent groups were used. As a conclusion, there was no significant difference among groups in terms of sex and age variables in problem solving skills and goal commitment scores (p>0.05). Despite no significant difference, it may be argued that problem solving skills of male athletes were better than female athletes according to average scores. Yet, there was a significant difference among groups in terms of sex and age variables in problem solving skills and sports age (p<0.05) and problem solving skills of athletes who did orienteering sport for 4-6 years were better. No significant difference existed between goal commitment and sport age. However, depending on average scores it was identified that as sport age increased so did goal commitment scores. A meaningful correlation between problem solving skills and goal commitment was found.


INTRODUCTION
Orienteering, including finding directions using a map in terrain against time, is done by people because it requires navigating, is an outdoor sport, is based on competition and is accepted as a sportive branch in many countries and world tournaments are held for orienteering.When it is thought that orienteering improves independently thinking skills and problem solving skills under pressure and stress; it is a sport that works mind, is quite healthy and needs mental capability (Mcrill, Cory, & Renfrew, 1998) and high level of physical abilities such as high level of endurance, strength and speed in order to overcome difficult barriers in terrain and to get the best point in competition (Ozcan, 2007).Orienteering is a kind of sport that emphasizes physical strength and intelligence, can improve the abilities of field direction of participants and can teach the participants to study and recognize the maps.Orienteering can cultivate and train the spirit of bullhead and brave.Besides it is entertaining and practicable (Tong, 2010).Orienteering is an outdoor sport similar to cross tournaments.Athletes in both sports try to complete activities as fast as possible in the open field.Using map and compass knowledge, orienteering athletes determine a route and complete the track at the shortest time (Symonds, 2008).Orienteering types recognized by IOF are foot orienteering, ski orienteering, mountain bike orienteering and trail orienteering (Deniz et al., 2012).Orienteering is a sportive branch that includes physical activities as well as mental activities.It improves ability to think independently and to overcome difficulties under pressure and stress (Güler, 2009).Solving problem is the process of individual's understanding and solving the gap between his target and the obstacles he faces while progressing to the target (Bingham, 2000).Bingham describes it as a process requiring a series of effort to abolish the difficulties for reaching a specific target.Solving problem helps to become optimistic about overcoming negative life conditions, to have a high selfefficacy, to improve recovery skill in negative conditions (Benard, 2004;Steinhardt and Dolbier, 2008).Problem solving is a cognitive, affective and behavioral process that an individual develops and produces to be able to find the way for coping with problems effectively.Problem solving facilitates health and emotions getting better and self-esteem and self-confidence developing and increases quality of life (D'Zurilla, and Nezu, 1990;D'Zurilla et al., 2007).How effective sports activities ,especially constant ones are over education-teaching, individual's social development, the skills of solving problem, overcoming stress and personal adaptation of the student doing sports and the students not doing sports under the same environment and conditions, also the difference between academic success levels highly draw attention (Türkcapar, 2009).Goal is defined as achieving certain proficiency during a certain process while goal commitment is the determination in reaching that accepted goal (Locke et al., 1981;Locke and Latham, 2002).A goal is a target, objective, standard, destination, aim or end towards which people direct their efforts (Carron et al., 2005).According to Locke and Latham (1990), individual task performance is affected by goals because having goals leads individuals to do what is necessary to produce such performance.There are three main direct goal mechanisms: effort, persistence and direction; which are mainly motivational (Locke, 1996).Studies done demonstrate that athletes of all ages set goals to enhance their performances and goal-setting is a significant strategy to increase performance (Horn, 2008).As a result; goals are classified into 3 categories: outcome goals, performance goals and process goals.Outcome goals mainly focus on competition while performance goals basically target at not only surpassing opponents' performance but also achieving a new performance and by going beyond one's previous performance (Burton, Naylor and Holliday, 2001;Weinberg and Gold, 2015).It is thought that orienteering athletes -being engaged with orienteering sport that requires physical and goal commitment under difficult environmental conditions-are supposed to demonstrate physical and goal commitment in order to find solutions to sudden and unexpected problems, to be determined and patient and to achieve the goal set.Investigating goal commitment and problem solving among orienteering athletes is important in improving performance, increasing success motivation and contributing to the relevant studies in this field.In light of background above mentioned; this study aimed at assessing problem solving and goal commitment among Orienteering athletes.

Method
The participants were sorted into age groups and young cyclist group consisted of 36 athletes (age range:18-27 years) while adult orienteering athletes group consisted of 145 athletes.In order to explore orienteering athletes' problem solving, The Problem-Solving Inventory (PSI) -developed by Heppner and Peterson (1982) and was translated into Turkish by Sahin and Petersen (1993)-and Goal -Commitment Scaledesigned by Hollenbeck, Williams and Klein (1989) under 9 items, reduced to 5 items by Klein, Wesson, Hollenbeck and Wright (1999) and adapted into Turkish Language by Şenel and Yıldız (2016)-were used.As scores increase, so does psychological resilience.

Goal Commitment Scale
Hollenbeck, Williams, and Klein (1989) developed the Goal Commitment Scale with 9 items.Klein, Wesson, Hollenbeck and Wright (2001) revised the scale to 5 items.Şenel and Yıldız (2016) translated the scale into Turkish and tested the reliability and validity with the participation of students studying in physical education and sport field.Items in Turkish version were revised in line with the expert opinions to assess commitment related to team goals.For example, in Turkish version, the item "It is hard to take this goal seriously" was revised to "It is hard to take a goal of my team seriously" and the revised scale was sent to expert for evaluation of the new scale.Experts advised that the word "team" should be replaced with "club" because participants were going to be competing for both individual and team sports.The scale has 5 items and 5-point likert type (1=strongly disagree -5= Strongly agree).The items of 1, 2, and 4 are reversed in calculating the average score.The higher score refers to the higher commitment.Internal consistency of the scale was found to be 0.70.(Büyüköztürk, 2011;Nunnally, 1978;Ö zgüven, 2004).

Data Analysis
Whether or not data used in the study followed a normal distribution was tested with Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test.Since the data did not follow a normal distribution, Mann Whitney-U Test for comparing two independent groups was used while Kruskal Wallis-H Test was used for comparing more than two independent groups As seen in Table 1, 46.7% of the participant orienteering athletes were female while 52.4% of them male; 27.6% of the participants were aged between 18 and 19 years, 51.7% of them 20 and 21 years and 20.7% of them ≥22 years.64.8% of orienteering athletes had a sport age of 1-3 years, 29% of them 4-6 years and 6.2% of them ≥7 years.As seen in Table 2, there was no significant difference among groups in terms of sex variable and problem solving skills and its subscales (p>0.05).It was identified that total score of problem solving inventory and average scores of its subscales of male athletes was lower as compared to female athletes.Because as problem solving skills scores increase, problem solving skills increase, we may suggest that male athletes' problem solving skills were better than female athletes.No significant difference was found between goal commitment and sex variable (p>0.05).Average goal commitment score of female athletes was (77.90) whereas average goal commitment score of male athletes was (68.55).According to these findings, goal commitment of female athletes was found to be higher than male athletes.As seen in Table 4, Precipitant Approach sub-dimension of PSI demonstrated significant difference in terms of sports age among the groups (p<0.05).After the paired comparisons, it was found that the difference was between those with sport age of 4-6 years and those with sport age of ≥7 years.Problem solving skills of athletes who did orienteering sports for 4-6 years were better.It was seen that there was no statistically significant difference among athletes in terms of total scores of PSI sub-dimensions Thinking, Reserved, Evaluative, Self-Confident and Planned Approaches according to sport age (p>0.05).A statistically significant difference did not exist between goal commitment and sport age variable (p>0.05).Goal commitment was 73.19 among those who had a sport age of 4-6 years whereas it was 93.06 among those who did orienteering sports for ≥7 years.As sport age increased so did average goal commitment scores.As seen in Table 5, there was a negative and lower correlation between goal commitment and total score of problem solving skills, Precipitant Approach and Thinking Approach (r=-0.201;r=-0.206 and p<0.05; respectively).According to this finding; as athletes' goal commitment scores increased their total score of problem solving skills and Precipitant Approach score decreased.As total score of PSI and total scores of its subdimensions reduce, individuals perceives themselves sufficient and therefore it may be suggested that increase in athletes' goal commitment score caused them to see themselves sufficient in PSI-Precipitant Approach and Thinking Approach.No significant correlation was found between goal commitment scores and scores of PSI subdimensions Reserved (r=-0.158),Evaluative (r=-0.118),Self confident (r=-0.159)and Planned approach (r=-0.032)(p>0.05).

Discussion And Results
In the study orienteering athletes' problem solving skills and goal commitment were examined and according to sex distribution 46.7% of the participant orienteering athletes were female while 52.4% of them male; according to age distribution 27.6% of the participants were aged between 18 and 19 years, 51.7% of them 20 and 21 years and 20.7% of them ≥22 years and according to sport age distribution 64.8% of orienteering athletes had a sport age of 1-3 years, 29% of them 4-6 years and 6.2% of them ≥7 years (Table 1).
According to sex variable, there was no significant difference among the groups in terms of problem solving skills and its subdimensions (p>0.05).Yet, it was seen that average total score of PSI and average scores of its subdimensions were lower among male athletes as compared to female athletes.As scores of problem solving skills decrease, problem solving skills increase and therefore we may suggest that male athletes' problem solving skills were better than female athletes.On the other hand, no significant difference between goal commitment and sex variable was found (p>0.05).Female athletes' average goal commitment was (77.90) while male athletes' average goal commitment was (68.55).According to these findings, we may argue the female athletes' goal commitment was higher than male athletes (Table 2).Xing (2011) found that, orienteering can effectively improve college students' mental health, especially in anxiety, self-abasement, social withdrawal, social attack, impulse, depression and dependence.Orienteering can promote college students' adjustment, especially in interpersonal relationship adjustment, emotion adjustment, satisfaction, campus life adjustment and job choosing adjustment (Xing, 2011).The studies of Tavlı (2007) and Gültekin (2006) supported these findings that problem solving skills did not differ according to sex variable.
Problem solving skills and goal commitment did not differ significantly among the groups according to age variable (Table 3).Yet, there was a significant difference between problem solving skills, Precipitant Approach and sports age (p<0.05).After paired comparisons, it was found that the difference was between those with sport age of 4-6 years and those with sport age of ≥7 years.Problem solving skills of athletes who did orienteering sports for 4-6 years were better.Problem solving skills of athletes who did orienteering sport for 4-6 years were better.According to sport age, total scores of PSI subdimensions Thinking, Reserved, Evaluative, Self-Confident and Planned Approaches were not significant among athletes (p>0.05).No significant difference was identified between goal commitment and sports age (p>0.05).Average goal commitment was 73.19 among those with a sport age of 4-6 years while it was 93.06 among those who did orienteering sports for ≥7 years.As sports age increased so did average goal commitment score (Table 4).According to the study results related to orienteering, a significant difference between athletes' marital status, age groups, and experiences in orienteering sports and self-esteem in decision making, decision is making styles.According to the research results, it has been determined that married orienteering athletes prefer both self-esteem in decision making and vigilance decision-making style more often than the single athletes that mostly prefer procrastination decisionmaking style.Also, it has been found out that as the athletes' age and experiences in sports increase, self-esteem and decision-making styles are affected more positively as well (Eroğlu et al., 2016).
There was a negative and lower correlation between goal commitment and total score of PSI, Precipitant Approach and Thinking Approach (r=-0.201;r=-0.206 and p<0.05; relatively).According to this finding, as athletes' goal commitment scores increased their PSI total score and Precipitant Approach score decreased.As total score of problem solving and total scores of its subdimensions reduce, individual perceives himself sufficient and therefore it may be suggested that increase in athletes' goal commitment scores caused them to see themselves sufficient in PSI-Precipitant Approach and Thinking Approach.No significant correlation was found between goal commitment scores and scores of PSI subdimensions Reserved (r=-0.158),Evaluative (r=-0.118),Self confident (r=-0.159)and Planned approaches (r=-0.032)(p>0.05)(Table 5).In the study of the problem-solving skills of orienteering athletes, it has been determined that the difference between the total mean scores that the orienteering athletes got from the problem solving inventory and their age, marital status, sports age, the years of practice in orienteering sports, and the status of being national player was significant.It was found that male orienteering athletes performed higher evaluating approach compared to the female athletes, and that as the age levels increase, the problem solving skill is affected more positively.Furthermore, it was determined that the perceptions of the participants who were more experienced, had long sports age in orienteering and did orienteering sports at a national level were more positive in problem solving skills (Eroglu & Eroglu, 2016).In a study in which problems solving skills of orienteering athletes were investigated in relation to intelligence areas; it was identified that orienteering athletes' naturalistic intelligence scores were higher as compared to other intelligence areas.It was concluded that there was a correlation between subjects' naturalistic intelligence scores and problem solving skills and kinesthetic intelligence scores (Özdemir, Güreş and Güneş, 2012).
In sum, the difference among the groups was not significant according to sex and age variables in terms of problem solving skills and goal commitment scores.It may be suggested that despite no meaningful difference, average problem solving skills scores of male athletes (70.26) were better than female athletes (76.01).A considerable difference existed between problem solving skills and sports age.Those athletes who did orienteering sports for 4-6 years were more successful in problem solving skills.Among the orienteering athletes, there was no significant difference between goal commitment and sports age.But considering average goal commitment scores, it was found that as sports age increased so did goal commitment scores.Besides, a meaningful correlation was found between problem solving skills and goal commitment (p<0.05).It is recommended that this study, done on orienteering athletes, should be applied to other nature sports in which problem solving and goal commitment are required.