Quality of Mobile Apps for Psychological Skills Training in Sport: a MARS-based Study

TL;DR

This study evaluates the quality of sports psychological skills training apps using MARS, revealing most apps fall below acceptable standards and emphasizing the need for improved development and usability.

Contribution

It provides a systematic quality assessment of PST apps in sports using MARS, highlighting current deficiencies and offering recommendations for future improvements.

Findings

Most PST apps do not meet quality standards.

Videos and audios are the most common media types used.

Only 6 out of 19 apps scored acceptably on MARS.

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the development of mobile applications to deliver various services in sports, including psychological skills training (PST) for athletes. While there are numerous PST-related apps available, little attention has been given to their objective quality. This study aimed to assess the current offerings of PST apps in sports, rate their quality, and provide recommendations for future app development. A scoping review of PST-related apps available on the Apple App Store was conducted, resulting in the retention of 19 apps. The apps used different media types to develop the PST. Of the 19 apps, videos were used by 8 (42%), audios by 7 (37%), articles by 3 (16%), assessment by 4 (21%), ebook by 1 (5%), and both cognitive tasks and personalized journals by 2 (10%). Overall, the app quality measured through the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) failed to meet acceptable standards, with a mean rating of 2.78 and only 6 of the apps receiving a score that met the acceptable standards. The findings highlight the need for improvement in the development of PST apps to enhance their quality and usability.