Self-management for student athletes in sports groups: Development of a Sport Self-management Skill scale

Abstract

This study was performed to develop a scale for evaluation of student athletes in sports groups and to examine its reliability and validity, focusing on veriˆcation of the sports self-management skills of individual athletes. First, 61 items were developed using existing scales. These items were then administered to 126 student athletes (5 teams, 66 male) using a 5-point rating scale and an open-ended questionnaire. To ensure objectivity, a university teacher from a department other than sport, 5 university teachers specializing in sport, and 3 graduate students from the samêeld also examined the items collected and developed. The items were examined for whether theyexpressèself-management skills.'' In the main research, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted using data from 603 student athletes (35 teams, 51 male) from various athletic clubs in Kanto, Japan. This revealed that 32 items were divisible into 8 factors: team contribution, thinking ability, self-introspection, conscientious atti-tude, continuous eŠort, achievement eŠort, task improvement, and creativity and originality. By analyzing these factors, su‹cient reliabilities were conˆrmed: the Cronbach's alpha coe‹cient was .66 .83 on the scale. The construct validity was supported because signiˆcant correlations with the existing scales were evident. Comparison of the score between the team's a‹liation level and the 8 factors of sport self-manage-ment skills revealed that for 7 of the factors, with the exceptionòconscientious attitude'', the score for self-management skills of a high-level sports team became higher than the others. Thus, with regard to veriˆcation of validity, it was revealed that a team composed of individuals with high sport self-manage-ment skills also played a high-level game. Thus, thênal sport self-management skill scale comprised 4 items for each of the 8 factors, adding up to 32 items.