ROLE OF CHANGE OF COMPETITION VENUE ON UNIVERSITY PLAYER PERFORMANCE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Abstract

Changes in competition venue represent a significant but understudied contextual variable in university sport performance in Pakistan. Away-venue competition exposes athletes to a range of psychological, physiological, and environmental stressors including competitive anxiety, reduced self-confidence, travel fatigue, unfamiliar playing surfaces, crowd pressure, and disrupted team coordination all of which may compromise performance outcomes. This exploratory, quantitative study investigated the role of competition venue change on university-level female athletes competing in Pakistan's inter-varsity sports championships during 2023–24. A purposive sample of 100 female players from universities across Pakistan was surveyed using an adapted 15-item Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) questionnaire (Martens, Vealey & Burton, 1990), administered 20 minutes prior to competition at the away venue. Data were analysed using Chi-Square tests via SPSS v.25, with all items yielding statistically significant results (p < .001). Findings revealed that a substantial proportion of players reported negative psychological and physiological effects when competing away from their home ground, including anxiety (42%), loss of self-confidence (33%), feelings of being powerless (40%), inability to coordinate with teammates (52%), fatigue (46%), reduced sense of safety (51%), and disheartening experiences (46%). Simultaneously, some players also reported heightened arousal responses at away venues, including greater excitement (53%), increased energy (43%), arrogance (51%), and aggression (42%). The study concludes that venue change exerts a significant and multidimensional influence on the psychological and physiological state of Pakistani university athletes, with negative effects predominating. Recommendations are made for institutional strategies to mitigate away-venue performance decrements, with implications for the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) and inter-varsity sport administration.