The Comparison of Mental Rotation Performance in Team and Individual Sports of Students

As a practical and causal-comparative study, the present study was aimed at comparing the mental rotation performance in team and individual sports among students. The statistical population included all of the female and male athletes (N=1500) from different districts of Shiraz, Iran who participated in the sport clubs. The participants of this study included 240 students between 12-14 years old (120 girls and 120 boys) who were selected randomly from four sport fields (Volleyball, Basketball, Karate, and Gymnastics). Finally, 30 athletes were selected from each field. The Mentrat Program, a kind of software for the Mental Rotation Test was used as an evaluation tool. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures were conducted to analysis of data. The results indicated that the impact of the rotational angle was significant in both team and individual groups (p < 0.05) while there was not any significant difference in the mental rotation performance in the team and individual sports of the male and female participants (p > 0.05). It was also observed that there was a significant difference between the mental rotation scores of the males in the individual groups contrary to the ones in the team groups (p < 0.05). As a whole, it seems that as the rotational angle increases, the ability of the mental rotation in the individual fields of sport (males) will be higher compared to the team groups.