Validation of a Questionnaire that Surveys Confidence in Sports among Korean Competitive Athletes

Background and Objective

This study aimed to verify the validity of a questionnaire that surveys confidence in sports among athletes in combat sports. The questionnaire addresses the concepts of persistence, calmness, hesitation, and physi-cal prime.

Material and Methods

Purposeful sampling using non-probability sampling was conducted in 367 players participating in uni-versity- and business-level athletics in the Republic of Korea. The data were analyzed using a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and a second confirmatory factor analysis with linear structural relations (LISREL) version 8.5. Concept reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) values were calculated using Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA). Two-way (2×2) randomized group (RG) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted using the SPSS 18.0 program (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).

Results

We proved that the sub-factors measured by the survey questions were relatively exact regarding self-confidence in combat-sport athletes. The questions relating to self-confidence in sports could be applied to both male and female athletes alike. The scores were higher in male athletes than in female athletes in the following factors: fighting spirit, calmness, and performing under pressure. The scores of the national ath-letes were higher compared to those of the non-national athletes with respect to the body preparation factor.

Conclusion

These results suggest that the competitive sports questionnaire developed in a previous study could be utilized without difficulty in a confidence-related study of competitive sports athletes. The questionnaire is particularly effective in evaluating the confidence level of athletes.

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