How the relationship among athletes' grit, self-regulation, competition preparation, and sports confidence varies across performance levels?: A multi-group analysis

In the literature on high-competition sports, some evidence has been suggested regarding the relationships between athletes' grit, self-regulation, competition preparation, and confidence. However, there has been a lack of integrated approaches to examine the relationships among these variables, and the individual factors of athletes have not been considered. Therefore, this study (a) analyzed the structural relationships between grit, self-regulation, competitive preparation, and confidence, and (b) investigated how these relationships vary according to athletes' performance levels. Participants were 270 student-athletes (209 males, 61 females) from various sports, all of whom were involved in highly competitive sports in South Korea. Athletes who had won at least one national-level competition were classified into the high-performance group ( n  = 112), while those without such experience were classified into the low-performance group ( n  = 158). Multi-group analysis showed that the structural relationships among grit, self-regulation, competitive preparation, and confidence varied according to the athletes' performance levels. In the high-performance group, self-regulation fully mediated the effect of competition preparation on confidence, whereas in the low-performance group, the mediation was partial. Furthermore, the path estimates for self-regulation, competition preparation, and confidence were found to be greater in the high-performance group. This study highlights that coaches should understand athletes' performance levels and apply appropriate strategies accordingly.