The purpose of the present research was to study the relationship between goal orientation and competitive anxiety and comparing them in female athlete students engaging in individual and team sports. Using Morgan’s table, 120 athletes were randomly selected from the team sports and 80 were selected from the individual sports. The Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duda and Nicholls, 1992) and Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT; Martens, 1990)were used for data collection. The results of Spearman’s test revealed that only in team sports is there a negative significant relationship between task orientation and competitive anxiety. Moreover, the results of Mann-Whitney U test showed that there is no significant difference between individual and team sports in task orientation and goal orientation and that there is only a significant difference between team and individual sports in competitive anxiety andego orientation with higher competition anxiety in the team athletes and higher ego orientation in the individual athletes ( ). Apparently, since the performance of an athlete in team sports depends on the team performance, the role given to the individual may interfere with their inner role and this issue leads to anxiety in the individual.
