Content area
Full text
Students from a non-sectarian, division III college participated in a study to test the relationship between two tests, the Spirituality in Sports Test and the Zone Test. Both tests were shown to have high internal consistency. The validity of the Zone Test was tested by correlating these results with the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory - 28. The validity, of the Spirituality in Sports Test was tested by correlating the results with The Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale. Both tests of validity were statistically significant. The Spirituality in Sports Test and the Zone Test were found to be significantly related to each other, providing empirical verification for the relationship between spirituality and being in the zone irr sports. However, having high athletic coping skills was also found to be independently related to being in the zone.
Participants in sports sometimes report experiencing a very positive state of consciousness. Prebish (1993) likens the state achieved by athletes to a peak experience in which total engrossment, effortlessness, and transcendence of self can be achieved independent of performance. Csikszentmihalyi (1997) found games and sports provide this experience 44% of the time for a sample of United States teenagers compared to television watching which provided it only 13% of the time.
While there are numerous anecdotal accounts of this experience often referred to as "being in the zone" (Hallowell, 1997; Levine, 1997; Smith, 1997), empirical research is in its beginning stages. In 1996, Jackson and Marsh developed and validated the Flow State Scale, a 36-item instrument designed to measure this state as characterized by Csikszentmihalyi (1990). More recently, Jackson, Kimiecik, Ford, and Marsh (1998) modified this scale to create a trait measure. Csikszentmihalyi (1992) cautions, however, about the dangers of reifying the concept. "The moment we say ...that flow is a score of `x' on the Flow Questionnaire, we have lost it. We have mistaken the reflection for the reality. The concept of flow describes a complex psychological state that has important consequences for human life. Any measure of flow we create will only be a partial reflection of this reality" (p. 183).
Jackson and Marsh (1996) agree there are problems inherent in the attempt to measure and quantify experiential states. "Flow cannot be fully captured by a score...