Assessing the Reliability of the Sexual Violence Questionnaire in Sport among Spanish-Speaking Athletes

Abstract

The prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse in school sport, specifically by coaches against their athletes, remains a concerning and pervasive issue. In an attempt to better understand and prevent specific coach-behaviours associated with such sexual misconduct, researchers have developed the Sexual Violence Questionnaire in Sport. While the reliability of this measurement tool has been tested in Anglo-Saxon cultural contexts, it is not known whether the questionnaire is applicable to other cultural contexts. This study aimed to analyse the internal consistency and reliability of the questionnaire on sexual harassment in sport, originally designed and developed in English. A sample of 146 (52 female, 94 male) undergraduate students from a university in the Basque Country participated in this cross-sectional study. The questionnaire was administered twice over a two-week period to assess test–retest reliability. The internal consistency of the Sexual Violence Questionnaire in Sport was high, with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.891 for perceptions and 0.813 for experiences across all participants. Gender-specific analysis showed similar reliability, with females having slightly lower alpha values for perceptions. Although significant differences were observed between the test and the retest on eight perception items and one experience item, Cohen’s kappa analysis indicated agreement on all items; however, some of them were low (e.g., 0.13). In conclusion, the study highlights the questionnaire’s overall reliability and suggests its effectiveness as a tool for measuring sexual violence in sport within the Spanish context. Nonetheless, the findings of this study underscore the need for further research to enhance the instrument’s stability and to better understand gender differences in perceptions and experiences of sexual violence in sport contexts.