Prediction of Shooting Performance with Cognitive Readiness, Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness

The purpose of this study is to predict shooting performance which is one of the essential skills of military personnel through such psychological dimensions as cognitive readiness, cognitive emotion regulation and mindfulness.

Students from one of the military centers in Tehran served as the research population from among whom a sample of 326 subjects was selected based on Morgan's and Krejsi's tables using the multiple cluster sampling method. The research method is descriptive correlational and to assess the cognitive readiness variable and its dimensions, the self-efficacy, meta-cognitive awareness, hardiness, five-factor personality (neo) and control source questionnaires as well as the cognitive-emotional regulation and mindfulness questionnaires were used. Then shooting was carried out using an air gun. The data from the questionnaires and the shooting test were analyzed by the 19th version of SPSS.

All of the studied variables except meta-cognitive awareness can predict shooting performance, and self-efficacy has a higher percentage among the cognitive readiness dimensions. Next to it is mindfulness which predicts more than 40% of the variance and has a significant relationship at 0.05% level.

Shooting skill in military forces is highly influenced by psychological constructs. For shooting, first, you need to have a high level of mindfulness to be aware of all the conditions. Then how to control anxiety is important. Among the solutions, self-efficacy and source of control can be mentioned. The results show that having psychological knowledge will improve shooting skill in dynamic and complex environments.