Psychology in college sport: study of mental load and psychological skills in high performance sport

The present investigation has the purpose to expose the levels of mental load and of different psychological abilities related to the athletic performance in athletes of high performance of the Icesi University of Santiago de Cali (Colombia). A non-experimental cross-sectional investigation was carried out in which the NASA-TLX and CPRD questionnaires were applied to 39 athletes (24 men and 15 women), between the ages of 18 and 24 years old. The results of the NASA-TLX gave evidence of a high level of mental load in the subjects, which suggests that the academic as well as the sporting demand of the university is taking the university athletes to dangerous levels of mental effort. On the other hand, the scores obtained after the application of CPRD show that there is evidence of significant differences in motivation between individual and joint sports, which may have cause in the ways in which athletes relate to each other. These results suggest the relevance of the participation of psychology in the sports environment to achieve an integral training, in which those differences are considered and thus build an optimal environment for good personal, emotional and, clearly, sports development.