The Correlation between IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness and Athlete
Performance
Angga Nugraha, Amung Ma’mun and Yusup Hidayat
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jln. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung, Indonesia
angganugraha@upi.edu
Keywords: IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness, Athlete Performance.
Abstract: This paper reported a correlational study between IQ, EQ, physical fitness, and athlete performance. The
samples were 30 futsal players at SMAN 1 Banjaran, Bandung, West Java. The study was conducted using a
survey method. The research instrument were the APM (Advanced Progressive Matrices) test, questionnaires,
the bleep test, and the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI). The results revealed that IQ
influenced athlete performance as much as 19.4%. The correlation coefficient between them was 0.441. In
other words, IQ and athlete performance was moderately correlated to each other. It was also revealed that
EQ influenced performance as much as 21.2%. The correlation coefficient between EQ and performance was
0.460. It means that these two variables were moderately correlated. The results also show that physical fitness
influenced performance as much as 14.2%. The correlation coefficient between physical fitness and
performance was 0.367. It means that these two variables have low correlation. Meanwhile, there was a strong
correlation between IQ, EQ, physical fitness and athlete performance as the observed F value was 4.653 with
a significance value as much as 0.010 < 0.05. It means that the null hypothesis was rejected. Put it simply,
there was a significant correlation between IQ, EQ, physical fitness and athlete performance.
1 INTRODUCTION
To become an athlete needs hard work, to be ready to
face hard training, and to prepare physical and mental
condition. An athlete also needs to take care of his
lifestyle (Informa et al., 2013). The things that needs
to be taken into account by an athlete includes
training time, meal time and rest time (Lastella,
Roach, Halson, and Sargent, 2015) all of those must
be kept and organized well. By the application of the
above mentioned aspects, it is expected that the
athlete can focus on achieving the expected target.
Basically, a futsal athlete is expected to have a
good physical fitness, and this will be achieved if the
athlete can apply the training program that has been
designed or planned well (Woods, McKeown, Keogh,
and Robertson, 2017). Physical training must not only
be done as a routine but also various and fun.
However in futsal, it is not only the physical aspect
that may affect, but also the psychological factor of
the athlete (Denison and Avner, 2011).
The above shows that there is a reciprocal
relationship between the physical and psychological
aspects. If the psychological aspect is disturbed, then
the physical function will also get disturbed that will
affect the motor skill. The sport achievement does not
only depend on the sport technical skills and physical
fitness, but also depends on the psychological
situations and mental health of the athletes (Baird and
McGannon, 2009). The psychological condition can
encourage someone to do something, therefore the
psychological condition of an athlete shall always be
in a good condition, in this case, beside the sport
technical skills training, the coach must be able to do
psychological approach to the athletes (Denison and
Avner, 2011). An athlete who performs physical and
technical training continuously without giving the
chance to train the thinking process will cause to less
developing intellectual activities, therefore there are
lots of athletes who make mistakes in training or
games (Rabbitt, 1990). For that reason, the
intellectual ability, in this case is the Intellectual
Quotient (IQ) must have its own attention to achieve
maximum result. For an athlete, intelligence is one of
the most important factors since the thinking ability
(IQ) of an athlete will affect the athlete’s performance
(DEXTER, 1999). An athlete is expected to analyse
the opponent’s game, then think about how to defeat
their attack and how to make goals to the opponent’s
goalpost. This must be done quick and precise by the
Nugraha, A., Ma’mun, A. and Hidayat, Y.
The Correlation between IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness and Athlete Performance.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education (ICSSHPE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 123-127
ISBN: 978-989-758-317-9
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
123
athlete, consequently an athlete must have a good
Intellectual Quotient (IQ) (Nettelbeck and Wilson,
2005). An athlete is expected to know the strength
and weakness of the opponent, hence the intelligence
level of the athlete really plays a huge role in
determining the winning and success (Flynn and
Weiss, 2007).
Beside the IQ (Intelligence Quotient), the EQ
(Emotional Quotient) is also important to be taken
into consideration since one’s intellectual ability or
thinking ability will naturally develop in accordance
with his growth (Croston, 2013). The ability to think
is one of the factors in decision making when doing
various physical activities.
Other factors of the learning or training results
other than IQ is the emotional quotient skill (EQ).
This became important since EQ (Emotional
Quotient) can affect the behaviour of an athlete
(Friesen et al., 2013), that is why an athlete must be
able to receive, assess, process, and control his
emotion as well as the emotion of people around him
(Seal and Andrews-Brown, 2010). An athlete who has
a good Emotional Quotient (EQ) will be able to think
more effectively so that the athlete can be aware of
and process his emotion, have the sensitivity toward
others’ emotion, respond and negotiate with other
people emotionally as well as using the emotion as a
tool to motivate himself (Juravich and Babiak, 2015).
If an athlete has no good emotional quotient (EQ),
poor behaviour will be projected by the athlete, for
instance, intentionally make fouls and injure
opponents and easy to provoke (Boardley and
Kavussanu, 2008). Besides, the athlete will always
feel right that leads to difficulty to receive advices and
inputs from others, work together with the team
members, easy to provoke, has no motivation and low
empathy (Greenlees, Lane, Thelwell, Holder, and
Hobson, 2005).
The explanation above can be one of the causes of
a less focused and discipline athlete in understanding
the materials that he learns (McCullagh and Wilson,
2007). The lack of ability to understand and perform
the instructions can cause the athlete to play poorly so
that the performance is not as expected.
Based on the fact and observation in the field, the
training process and game result in futsal, the
emotional quotient (EQ) shown by the futsal athletes
of 1 Banjaran Public High School is relatively varied.
The athlete fails to cooperate with other athletes when
playing futsal in one team. If an athlete has a poor
emotional quotient, the athlete is less able to respect
others and the coach as well as other athletes. This
will affect the athlete’s behaviour and mindset
(Proios, 2014). Moreover, other indication is that
there is an athlete with good discipline and also
students that fail to follow the rules in the training
process, as well as the emotional athlete and often
perform aggression to the opponents when competing
(Boardley and Kavussanu, 2008). Referring to the
above condition, if linked with the aims of the
training and competing, to shape qualified and skilled
people, then there is something that needs to be taken
into consideration and responded by the futsal
coaches regarding the IQ and EQ to make a solid
teamwork.
An athlete, other than having to have a good IQ
(Intelligent Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient),
he also needs to have a good physical fitness (Burley,
Lenard, and Jr, n.d.), since the physical fitness is the
main foundation of an athlete. If someone already has
a good physical fitness, he will not get tired easily,
this is very important so that the athlete can perform
the training activities well. Besides, one with a good
physical fitness will be spared from the probability of
injury when doing physical activities or heavy sports
since the bone and muscles are strong (Kidokoro et
al., 2016). Physical fitness is very important because
the athlete with good physical fitness will have good
muscle strength, metabolism and cardiorespiratory
(Stodden, Langendorfer, and Roberton, 2009).
Moreover, the athletes with good physical fitness will
be able to concentrate and think clearly (Nadig and
Sedivy, 2002), different with if the athletes have poor
physical fitness. This can cause the athlete to get tired
easily and concentration drop so that the emotion of
the athletes will become unstable.
Based on the explanation above, it can be
described that IQ, EQ and physical fitness relate to
the athletes performance, personally or as a team
(Burley et al., n.d.). Therefore, IQ, EQ and Physical
Fitness have an important role since they can improve
the athletes’ performance. Referring to the
background of the issues above, the writers are
interested in conducting the research on “The
Correlation between IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness and
Athlete Performance”.
2 METHODS
The sampling technique used in this research is
saturation sampling with the total of 30 futsal athletes
at 1 Banjaran Bandung Public High School. The
method used was the survey method consisted of
three variables, namely the free variables and bound
variables. The free variables in this research were the
Intelligence Quotient (IQ), Emotional Quotient (EQ)
and Physical Fitness, and the bound variable was the
ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education
124
athletes’ performance. The instruments used in this
research to test the intellectual intelligence used the
APM test that was performed by the guidance and
counselling technical performance, Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia, the emotional quotient used
the emotional quotient scale, physical fitness used the
bleep test, and the performance used the Game
Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI) whose
reliability and validity have been tested. To find out
if there is any relation that directly affect the free
variables toward the bound variable, it was analysed
using the simple correlation (Product Moment
Correlation) using SPSS 20.0 software.
3 RESULTS
Table 1: Results of the research.
Variable
Model
R
R
Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error
of estimate
IQ affects athletes’ performance
1
441
a
194
116
9.17189
EQ affects athletes’ performance
1
460
a
212
184
9.07295
Physical fitness affects athletes’ performance
1
376
a
142
111
9.46734
IQ, EQ and Physical Fitness affect athletes’
performance
1
591
a
349
274
8.55414
F
count
Variable
Df
Mean
Square
F
Sig.
IQ affects athletes’ performance
1
568.541
6.758
.015
a
28
84.124
29
EQ affects athletes’ performance
1
619.083
7.521
.011
a
28
82.318
29
Physical fitness affects athletes’ performance
1
414.345
4.623
.040
a
28
89.631
29
IQ, EQ and Physical Fitness affect athletes’
performance
3
340.498
4.653
010
a
26
73.173
29
3.1 Analysis of the Correlation of IQ
and Athletes’ Performance
In the variable IQ affect the performance in the R
Square value of 0.194 correlation value can be
interpreted IQ variables affect the performance of
19.4% while the remaining 80.6% (100% -19.4%)
influenced other variables beyond IQ variables.
While the value of R shows Based on the results of
0.441, meaning the relationship between IQ variables
with performance included in the category of being.
And for variable IQ affect the performance at can
Fcount equal to 6,758 with significance 0,015 <0,05
which mean H0 rejected. This means there is a
significant relationship between IQ with the
performance of athletes in the field.
3.2 Analysis of the Correlation of EQ
and the Athletes’ Performance
Based on the result on EQ variable affects the
performance, the R Square value resulted is 0,212
which means that the EQ variable affects the
performance for 21,2% while the rest is 78,8%
(100%-21,2%) affected by other variables other than
the EQ variable. Whereas the R value shows the
correlation value for 0.460, meaning that the
correlation between the EQ variable and the
performance are included in average category. And
for the EQ variable affects the performance, the
Fcount resulted is 7,521 with 0,011 < 0.05
significance which means that the H0 is rejected. It
means that there is a significant correlation between
the EQ and the athletes’ performance.
The Correlation between IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness and Athlete Performance
125
3.3 The Analysis of the Correlation of
Fitness and Athletes’ Performance
on the Field
The fitness variable affects the performance, the R
Square resulted is 0.142, meaning that the fitness
variable does affect the performance of 14,2%, while
the rest is 85,8% (100%-14,2%) affected by other
variables other than the fitness variable. Whereas the
R value shows the correlation value achieved is
0,367, meaning that the correlation between the
fitness variable and the performance is included in
low category. And for the result in the fitness
category affects the performance, the Fcount resulted
is 4,623 with significance of 0,040 < 0,05 which
means H0 is rejected. It means that there is a
significant correlation between the fitness and
performance of the athletes.
3.4 Analysis of the Correlation of the
IQ, EQ, Physical Fitness and the
Performance of the Athletes
The R Square value is used when the free variable
only consists of one (commonly called as simple
linear regression), while the Adjusted R Square is
used when the free variable is more than one. It is
because the free variable consists of three, then the
Adjusted R Square value resulted is 0,274 which
means that the IQ, EQ and physical fitness variables
affect the performance for 27,4% while the rest is
72,6% (100%-27,4%) is affected by other variable
other than the IQ, EQ and physical fitness variable.
Whereas the R value shows the correlation value of
0.591 which means that the correlation between the
IQ, EQ and physical fitness variable and the
performance is included into the average category.
And for the result of the R Square value is used when
the free variable only consists of one (commonly
called as the simple linear regression), while the
Adjusted R Square is used when the free variable is
more than one. Since the free variable consists of
three then the Adjusted R Square value resulted is
0.274 which means that the IQ, EQ and physical
fitness variable affects the performance for 27,4%
while the rest is 72,6% (100%-27,4%) is affected by
other variable other than the IQ, EQ and physical
fitness variable. Whereas the R value shows the
correlation value of 0.591 which means that the
correlation between the IQ, EQ and physical fitness
variable and the performance is included into the
average category.
4 DISCUSSION
4.1 The Correlation of the IQ, EQ and
Physical Fitness and the Athletes’
Performance
From the proposed hypothesis, there is a significant
correlation between the IQ, EQ and Physical Fitness
and the athletes’ performance, this is proven through
the result of the research that IQ, EQ and Physical
Fitness affect the performance with Fcount for 4,653
and significance of 0,010 < 0,05 which means that H0
is rejected. It means that there is a significant
correlation between the IQ, EQ and Physical Fitness
and the athletes’ performance.
As explained, IQ, EQ and physical fitness do
affect the athletes’ performance. The physical
activities done regularly correlate with the cognitive
performance. The statement above stated that the IQ,
EQ and physical fitness give an important role in
decision making included in the athletes’
performance on the field since futsal is related with
lots of people in making decisions on filed whether in
the game quality or in the winning target of a game.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the result of the data analysis and findings
in this research, it can be concluded that there is a
result of 19,4% percentage which shows that there is
a significant correlation between IQ and the athletes’
performance. While the R value shows that the
correlation value gained is 0,441 which means that
between the IQ variable and the performance is
included in the average category, whereas the rest for
80,6% (100%-19,4%) is affected by other variables
other than the IQ variable. Therefore the percentage
value of the correlation between EQ and the athletes’
performance is 21,2% which shows that there is a
significant correlation between the EQ and the
athletes’ performance, while the rest for 78m8%
(100%-21,2) is affected by other variables other than
the EQ variable. And for the percentage of the
correlation between the physical fitness and the
athletes’ performance is 14,2% which shows that
there is a significant correlation between the physical
fitness and the athletes’ performance. While the rest
is 85,85% (100%-14,2%) is affected by other
variables other than the physical fitness. Whereas the
result of the correlation of IQ, EQ and physical fitness
and the athletes’ performance is proven significant
with Fcount as 4,653 and significance of 0,010 < 0,05
ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education
126
which means that the H0 is rejected. This means that
there is a significant correlation between the IQ, EQ
and physical fitness and the athletes’ performance.
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