Development and validation of the significant others' goal-involving roles in Sport Questionnaire

Three studies were conducted to develop and validate a French questionnaire measuring athletes' perceptions of significant others' task- and ego-involving roles. In Study 1, a preliminary version was constructed by creating or selecting and adapting 30 items from various existing questionnaires which refer to different significant others. In Study 2, exploratory factor analyses with 2 10 athletes (M age = 17.2) suggested the existence of six scales (PLC: Promotion of Learning by the Coach, PLP: Promotion of Learning by Parents, PLA: Pursuit of Learning by Athletes, PCC: Promotion of Comparison by the Coach, PCP: Promotion of Comparison by Parents, PCA: Pursuit of Comparison by Athletes) with satisfactory internal consistencies, except for the PCP scale. In Study 3, confirmatory factor analyses with 285 athletes (M age = 16.9) supported the preliminary six-factor structure of the instrument as well as a hierarchical structure in which the six factors were distributed into two higher-order factors (TIR: Task-Involving Roles and EIR: Ego-Involving Roles). The theoretical validity of the questionnaire was evidenced by positive correlations between 'learning; scales (PLC, PLP PLA) and task orientation, and between 'comparison' scales (PCC, PCP, PCA) and ego orientation. The test-retest reliability was good over a three-week period and was moderate over a three-month period.