development of a questionnaire for the assessment of ... · development of a questionnaire for the...

Psychology of Sport and Exercise 3 (2002) 1–34www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport

Development of a questionnaire for the assessment of copingstrategies employed by athletes in competitive sport settings

P. Gaudreau*, J.-P. BlondinDepartement de psychologie, Universite de Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec,

Canada H3C 3J7

Received 3 October 2000; received in revised form 22 March 2001; accepted 24 May 2001

Abstract

Objectives: To develop an original self-report instrument for the assessment of athletes’ coping strategiesin competitive sport settings and to provide preliminary evidence for its factorial, convergent, concurrent,and differential validity.

Method: French–Canadian athletes (N=316; M age=17.4 years) completed l’Inventaire des Strate´gies deCoping en Compe´tition Sportive (ISCCS) along with three measures of cognitive appraisal (i.e. perceivedrelevance of the competition, sense of control, and perceived goal attainment), either the PANAS or theCSAI-2, and either the WOCQ, the MCOPE, or a social desirability scale. All scales were administeredwithin six hours of completion of a sport competition.

Results: A sequential four-stage confirmatory factor analysis revealed an adequate fit for a 10-factormodel and its superiority over a two- and a three-factor model. The subscales of the ISCCS correlatedmeaningfully with appraisal variables, positive and negative affect (PANAS), cognitive and somatic anxiety(CSAI-2), and the coping strategies of both WOCQ and MCOPE questionnaires, thus providing evidencefor their concurrent and convergent validity. A multivariate factorial analysis of variance lent partial supportfor the differential validity of the ISCCS as effort expenditure, mental imagery, relaxation, and venting ofunpleasant emotion varied significantly across athletes’ level of expertise whereas venting of unpleasantemotion and effort expenditure differed significantly between genders.

Conclusions: The results revealed promising features of the ISCCS. Future research should assesswhether the factorial structure of the ISCCS is invariant across athletes’ genders and expertise levels aswell as across the different phases of a sport competition. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: ISCCS; Coping; Emotion; Performance; Validity

* Corresponding author. Tel.:+1-514-343-6508; fax:+1-514-343-2285.E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Gaudreau).

1469-0292/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S1469-0292(01)00017-6

2 P. Gaudreau, J.-P. Blondin / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 3 (2002) 1–34

Introduction

In recent years, several researchers began devoting empirical attention to the strategies usedby athletes in order to manage the stressful demands encountered in sport settings. A first line ofinquiry was aimed at delineating the coping actions of athletes in various sport settings (Eklund,1996; Gould, Eklund, & Jackson, 1993; Gould, Finch, & Jackson, 1993; Prapavessis & Grove,1995; Wingate, 1993). Along with providing in-depth descriptions of athletes’ coping actions,these works have led to the identification of numerous clusters of homogeneous and distinctcoping strategies. Based on systemic models of coping (Finch, 1994; Hardy, Jones, & Gould,1996; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), a second line of inquiry examined the determinants and out-comes of coping in order to identify which specific strategies are best for managing the internaland external demands encountered in sport settings. Coping strategies of athletes have been linkedto variables such as perceived control (Anshel & Kaissidis, 1997; Haney & Long, 1995), self-efficacy (Haney & Long, 1995), trait-anxiety (Finch, 1994; Giacobbi & Weinberg, 2000), trait-confidence and trait-optimism (Grove & Heard, 1997), state-anxiety (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 2000),goal orientation (Kim & Duda, 1999; Ntoumanis, Biddle, & Haddock, 1999), perceived motiv-ational climate (Ntoumanis et al., 1999), positive and negative affect (Crocker & Graham, 1995;Gaudreau, Blondin, & Lapierre, 2001; Ntoumanis et al., 1999), normative measures of perform-ance (Finch, 1994; Haney & Long, 1995), and performance–goal discrepancy (Gaudreau et al.,2001). Despite these significant advances in both quantitative and qualitative research, insufficienteffort has been devoted to the development of quantitative measures of coping in sport. Thispaper provides a critical overview of the self-report coping questionnaires that have been used insport psychology research. Then, it addresses the development of an original measure for assessingcoping strategies of athletes in competitive sport events.

Conceptual and theoretical foundations of coping instruments

The construct of coping has been defined as the behavioral and cognitive efforts of an individualto manage the internal and external demands encountered during a specific stressful situation(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). This definition outlines the multivariate nature of the construct andassumes the necessity of aggregating coping actions into meaningful clusters. Thus, a plethora ofcoping typologies has been developed (Parker & Endler, 1992; Zeidner & Endler, 1996) andnumerous researchers borrowed from Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) distinction between two func-tional higher-order dimensions of coping. The first dimension, the task-oriented coping (TOC),refers to the actions that are employed in order to change or master some aspects of a situationthat is perceived as stressful. This dimension subsumes specific coping strategies such as increasedeffort, planning, and logical analysis. The second dimension, the emotion-oriented coping (EOC),represents the actions that are employed in order to change the meaning of a stressful situationas well as to regulate the resulting negative emotions. This dimension subsumes specific copingstrategies such as humor, venting of emotion, and acceptance. Despite the heuristic value of thisconsensual typology, the existence of a third functional dimension of coping has been suggestedby several authors (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989; Endler & Parker, 1994) and supportedby the results of second-order factor analyses (Hudek-Knezevic, Kardum, & Vukmirovic, 1999;Zautra, Sheets, & Sandler, 1997). This third dimension, the avoidance-oriented coping, represents

3P. Gaudreau, J.-P. Blondin / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 3 (2002) 1–34

the actions that are employed in order to disengage oneself from the task and to redirect one’sattention on task-irrelevant cues. This dimension includes specific strategies such as behavioraldisengagement, denial, and use of alcohol/drug.

A second theoretical issue in coping research stems from its definition as either a trait or asituation-specific response. According to the coping trait paradigm, coping represents the actionsthat people usually perform under stressful circumstances. Tenants of this approach (Anshel &Kaissidis, 1997; Bolger, 1990; Carver et al., 1989) assume that coping responses should remainstable, as people employ a preferred set of responses when confronted with stressful events. Sucha perspective contrasts with the process-oriented approach, which defines coping as contextuallydependent responses (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Tenants of the latter approach (Compas &Epping, 1993; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) explicitly assume that coping responses should changeacross stressful situations and across the distinctive phases of a stressful situation.

Empirical evidence in mainstream and sport psychology tends to support the notion that copingactions change across situations (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1994; Sellers, 1995), across the samesituation over time (Stewart & Schwarzer, 1996; Crocker & Isaak, 1997), and across the distinctivephases of a given situation (Carver & Scheier, 1994; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Gaudreau et al.,2001; Gaudreau, Lapierre, & Blondin, in press). Based on these findings, many sport scientistshave recently embraced the process-oriented approach of coping (Cerin, Szabo, Hunt, & Williams,2000; Crocker, Kowalski, & Graham, 1998; Hardy et al., 1996). Thus, self-report measures suchas the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985) and the COPE Inven-tory (COPE; Carver et al., 1989) were adapted for sport settings in order to assess athletes’ copingactions under specific stressful situations.

Sport versions of the WOCQ

The WOCQ (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985) measures coping strategies that are supposedly appli-cable in numerous stressful settings. Despite the widespread utilization of this questionnaire inmainstream psychology, the clarity, conceptual specificity, and applicability of its items have beencriticized abundantly in recent years (Ben-Porath, Waller, & Butcher, 1991; Stone, Greenberg,Kennedy-Moore, & Newman, 1991). Moreover, empirical evidence has lent credence to thesecritics by showing the lack of internal consistency and the factorial instability of this questionnaire(Clark, Bormann, Cropanzano, & James, 1995; Parker, Endler, & Bagby, 1993).

Regardless of these limitations, the Ways of Coping for Sport (WOCS; Madden, Kirkby, &McDonald, 1989) and the Modified Ways of Coping Questionnaire (MWOCQ; Crocker, 1992)were developed by modifying the 66 items of the original WOCQ in order to make them relevantin sport settings. As expected, these versions possess similar conceptual and psychometrical weak-nesses as the original questionnaire. Firstly, the factorial structure is inconsistent across the ver-sions of the questionnaire. For instance, factor labels of the WOCS differed from those of theMWOCQ (Crocker, 1992). The lack of conceptual specificity of the subscales, developed solelyon the basis of exploratory factor analysis, might explain this inconsistency. Also, several itemsloaded on different factors across the various versions of the questionnaire. As such, the ambiguityof items and their lack of conceptual specificity might have caused them to represent more thanone coping strategy. Secondly, the factorial structure of the WOCS (Madden et al., 1989) isinconsistent across samples. Whereas the results of a principal components analysis, performed


with a sample of 130 Australian basketball players, yielded an eight-factor model (Madden et al.,1989), those of a confirmatory factor analysis, performed with a sample of 630 Australian athletes,indicated the inadequate fit of this model and the more adequate fit of an alternative four-factormodel (Grove, Eklund, & Heard, 1997). In sum, the factorial instability of these questionnairesand their incapacity to replicate the factorial model of the original WOCQ (Folkman & Lazarus,1985) might hinder the comparison of empirical data across research settings and also might raiseconcerns about the validity of data collected with these measures.

Utilization of the COPE inventory in sport settings

Reacting to the relative lack of theoretical relevance of the WOCQ, Carver and his collaborators(1989) developed the COPE Inventory, a theoretically based measure assessing 15 coping stra-tegies that are applicable across numerous stressful settings. Results of a principal axis factoranalysis conducted with a sample of 978 American college students lent partial support to theirmodel. However, items from the two social support scales loaded on a single factor, and itemsfrom the active coping and from the planning scales also loaded on a single factor. Althoughunexpected, this 13-factor model was corroborated by the results of a confirmatory factor analysis(Clark et al., 1995) which indicated its superiority over the theoretically derived 15-factor model.

Sport scientists soon acknowledged the qualities of the COPE. Based on the results of theirqualitative studies, Gould and his collaborators (1993) asserted that the COPE was the best quanti-tative instrument to assess coping actions in sport settings, and numerous sport scientists havesince employed the COPE (Eubank & Collins, 2000; Finch, 1994). As such, the results of aconfirmatory factor analysis, conducted with a sample of 870 Australian athletes, confirmed thefactorial validity of the COPE in sport settings and also showed the superiority of a 14-factormodel (i.e. aggregation of the two social support scales) over a 15-factor model (Eklund, Grove, &Heard, 1998).

Recognizing these psychometric qualities, Crocker and Graham (1995) have developed a sportversion of the COPE (Carver et al., 1989). The Modified-COPE (MCOPE) is comprised of ninescales from the original COPE (i.e. active coping, planning, seeking instrumental social support,seeking emotional social support, suppression of competing activities, denial, humor, venting ofemotion, and behavioral disengagement) and three scales from the sport versions of the WOCQ(i.e. wishful thinking, self-blame, and increased effort). Results of both exploratory (Ntoumaniset al., 1999) and confirmatory factor analyses (Eklund et al., 1998) provided reasonable supportfor the factorial structure of the MCOPE.

Athletic coping skills inventory-28

Accounting for the necessity of developing reliable and valid sport-specific questionnaires forthe assessment of basic psychological skills, the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28;Smith, Schutz, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1995) was created. Results of a principal components analysisbased on responses from 637 athletes on an 87-item instrument yielded an eighth-factor model(Smith, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1990). However, a confirmatory factor analysis failed to support thismodel and revealed the superiority of a 28-item seven-factor model (Smith et al., 1995). Evidenceprovided support for the test–retest reliability and for the concurrent, convergent (Smith et al.,


1995), and differential validity (Smith & Christensen, 1995) of this measure. Despite its psycho-metric qualities and its sport specificity, several issues threaten the validity of the ASCI-28. Firstly,its development was based neither on a psychological skills training theory (Murphy & Tammen,1998) nor on the assumptions of the coping paradigm (Crocker et al., 1998). Consequently, theconceptual clarity of several subscales could be improved as the heterogeneity among their itemsmakes it difficult to ascertain that it represents a particular coping skill (Murphy & Tammen,1998). Secondly, several items seem to measure coping efficiency rather than coping utilization.Confounding the utilization of coping with its efficiency into a single instrument might enhanceartificially its statistical association with positive outcomes (Coyne & Gottlieb, 1996; Oakland &Ostell, 1996) and might lead to the development of unreliable guidelines for performance enhance-ment interventions. As such, the ASCI-28 overlooks the assumption that coping and its potentialoutcomes should be measured independently (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985). Thirdly, severalresearchers (Hardy et al., 1996; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) have outlined the need for assessingcoping as a contextual-dependent response. Unfortunately, the trait-like orientation of the ASCI-28 prevents the assessment of athletes’ coping actions during specific stressful situations andmight inhibit the investigation of coping consistency across situations and across the phases of agiven situation.

Conceptual limitations

Despite their respective psychometric strengths and weaknesses, several coping measures usedin sport settings share a common limitation in that they were developed based on questionnairescreated to address problems and issues in general psychology. Because coping actions mightchange across situations (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1994; Sellers, 1995), the content relevance ofquestionnaires designed primarily for use in community, clinical, or healthcare settings is debat-able. As such, some important facets of athletes’ coping might have been omitted in these ques-tionnaires whereas coping actions outside the sport-specific domains of the construct might havebeen included. The inclusion of contextually irrelevant coping actions has the potential to rendersome items inapplicable and to create psychometrical problems such as low internal consistencyand factorial instability (Ben-Porath et al., 1991). In addition, all coping instruments used in sportsettings were developed in the early 1990s. Because numerous in-depth descriptions of athletes’coping actions have been provided during the last decade, content relevance and representativenessof questionnaires could be enhanced. Considering that the content validation of psychologicalinstruments is a dynamic process, coping instruments should integrate the relevant data that haveemerged during the last decade.

Scale development

Borrowing from the sport-specific qualitative literature of coping, the main goal of this researchwas to create a self-report questionnaire with both theoretical and conceptual relevance in sportsettings. In accordance with previous research in this area (Crocker et al., 1998; Hardy et al.,1996), it was decided to rely upon Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) assumptions and to definecoping as the behavioral and cognitive actions of an individual to manage the internal and externaldemands of a specific situation. Based on substantial empirical evidence (Carver, Pozo, Harris,


Noriega, Schier, Robinson, Moffat, & Clark, 1993; Carver & Scheier, 1994; Frydenberg & Lewis,1994; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Gaudreau et al., in press; Sellers, 1995; Stewart & Schwarzer,1996), it was decided to define coping as contextually dependent responses that change acrossstressful situations and across the distinctive phases of a stressful situation. From this decisionarose the necessity of assessing coping during a specific stressful sport situation. Because competi-tive sport events have the potential to render stress, it was decided to measure the numerouscoping actions used by athletes during the pre-competitive, competitive, and post-competitivephases of competitive sport events.

In order to ensure the sport-specificity and the content validity of the measure, a two-stepprocedure was followed. Firstly, a broad review of mainstream and sport psychology copingliterature was conducted in order to cover the relevant domain of coping actions that could beused by athletes in competitive events. Secondly, 17 qualitative sport psychology studies wereexamined. The published research pertaining specifically to coping was reviewed (Eklund, 1996;Gould, Eklund, & Jackson, 1992a, 1992b, 1993; Gould, Finch, & Jackson, 1993; Prapavessis &Grove, 1995; Wingate, 1993). Also, other studies investigating factors associated with burnout(Gould, Tuffey, Udry, & Loehr, 1995), facilitative anxiety (Hanton & Jones, 1999), peak perform-ance (Beauchamp, 1995; Dagrou, Gauvin, & Halliwell, 1991; George, 1988; McCaffrey & Orlick,1989; Orlick & Partington, 1988; Struthers, 1990), and flow experience (Jackson, 1992, 1995)were reviewed.

The breadth of the review of the literature maximized the content broadness of the measureand outlined the similarities between coping and the basic psychological skills construct. As withcoping, basic psychological skills have been conceived as a process encompassing specific actionsdirected toward the self-regulation of behavior, emotion, and cognition (Murphy & Tammen,1998). Although some sport scientists distinguished coping strategies from basic psychologicalskills (Crocker et al., 1998; Hardy et al., 1996; Murphy & Tammen, 1998), constructs that weredefined previously as basic psychological skills (i.e. imagery, relaxation, thought control, positiveself-talk, search for improvement, and emotional control) have emerged as coping actions inqualitative research (Gould et al., 1993a). Clearly, these constructs should be included within asport-specific coping instrument as they are frequently employed by athletes to manage the stress-ful demands encountered during competitive sport events.

Also, the broadness of the review was useful in delineating the conceptual boundaries of themeasure. Several constructs (e.g. achievement motivation, self-esteem, self-awareness, confidence,self-efficacy, coachability, and concentration) that were defined previously as basic psychologicalskills (Murphy & Tammen, 1998) were excluded from our measure of coping. As Thomas, Mur-phy, and Hardy (1999) noted, these constructs represent traits and states rather than skills orspecific set of actions that individuals can employ under specific situations. Moreover, systemicmodels of coping developed in mainstream (Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Moos,1993) and sport psychology (Cerin et al., 2000; Finch, 1994; Hardy et al., 1996) have consideredpersonality traits as well as cognitive, motivational, and affective states as determinants of copingbehaviors. Thus, constructs such as self-efficacy (Haney & Long, 1995), self-esteem, confidence(Grove & Heard, 1997), and achievement motivation (Mantzicopoulos, 1997) were seen as poten-tial determinants of coping actions and not as coping per se.

Based on the above rationale, a questionnaire encompassing several strategies that fitted theparameters of the coping construct was developed. Using a theoretically based approach to scale


development (Clark & Watson, 1995; DeVellis, 1991), 10 sport-relevant, homogeneous, and con-ceptually distinct coping strategies applicable before, during, and after sport competitions wereidentified and formed the core of the questionnaire. These coping strategies were selected torepresent two functional higher-order dimensions of coping: TOC and EOC. The 10 coping stra-tegies and their respective definitions are presented in Table 1. We will refer to this questionnaireas the Inventaire des Strategies de Coping en Competition Sportive (ISCCS; Coping Strategiesin Sport Competition Inventory).

Goals and hypotheses

This paper had four goals. The first goal was to develop the ISCCS, to refine it, and to test itsstructural validity with a four-stage sequential confirmatory factor analysis (Joreskog, 1993). Thesecond goal was to examine the convergent validity of the ISCCS by assessing whether its subs-cales correlated meaningfully with other questionnaires measuring similar coping constructs(Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1993; Kline, 1998). As such, it was hypothesized that the TOC subscales

Table 1Definition of the 10 coping subscales of the ISCCS

Subscales Definition

TOC subscalesThought control Cognitive actions used in order to restructure one’s cognitions by

emphasizing positive aspects of the self and of past, actual, and futurestressful sport situations

Mental imagery Cognitive actions used in order to rehearse or to practice mentally thetactical, the technical, and the mental aspects associated with past, actual,and future stressful sport situations

Relaxation Behavioral actions used in order to reduce one’s level of physiological,muscular, and mental tension

Effort expenditure Behavioral actions used in order to mobilize its physical and mentalresources in order to act directly on stressful situations encountered in sportsettings

Logical analysis Cognitive actions used in order to identify and/or assess the internal andexternal factors associated with past, actual, and future stressful situationsencountered in sport settings

Seeking support Behavioral actions used in order to obtain advice, feedback, emotionalsupport, and instrumental support

EOC subscalesVenting of unpleasant emotion Behavioral actions used in order to express and ventilate unpleasant

emotional tensions experienced in stressful sport situationsMental distraction Cognitive and behavioral actions used in order to focus voluntarily on

things that are irrelevant or unrelated to sport performanceDisengagement/resignation Cognitive and behavioral actions used in order to avoid doing the actions

that are necessary to the attainment of one’s performance goalSocial withdrawal Behavioral actions used in order to reduce or eliminate social relationships

momentarily

Note: TOC=task-oriented coping, EOC=emotion-oriented coping.


of the ISCCS would exhibit a positive association with those of the MCOPE and the WOCQ. Also,it was hypothesized that the EOC subscales of the ISCCS would exhibit a positive association withthose of the MCOPE and the WOCQ. The third goal was to examine the concurrent validity ofthe ISCCS by assessing its relationships with external criteria administrated at the same point intime (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1993; Kline, 1998). Based on systemic theories of coping (Lazarus &Folkman, 1984; Hardy et al., 1996) and on mainstream and sport psychology literature, it washypothesized that the TOC subscales would correlate positively with perceived goal attainment(Gaudreau et al., 2001), perceived relevance of the competition (Lazarus, 1991), perceived control(Haney & Long, 1995), positive affect (Crocker & Graham, 1995), and somatic anxiety(Ntoumanis & Biddle, 2000). Also, it was expected that the EOC subscales would correlate posi-tively with negative affect (Crocker & Graham, 1995) and cognitive anxiety (Ntoumanis & Biddle,2000). The fourth goal was to test the differential validity of the ISCCS by showing whetherathletes’ use of coping strategies differed as function of their expertise level (Kaplan & Saccuzzo,1993). Based on the basic psychological skills literature (Thomas et al., 1999), it was hypothesizedthat international and national athletes would use more TOC and less EOC than their provincialand regional counterparts.

Method

Creation of items

Using the raw data themes and quotes from qualitative studies along with the items from quanti-tative measures of coping and basic psychological skills, a corpus of sport-relevant items wasdeveloped for 10 coping strategies. Guidelines for items wording (Clark & Watson, 1995) wereclosely followed to maximize their clarity, their specificity, and their shortness. Each item waswritten so that athletes of 14 years of age and older would understand it. Because of the furtherutilization of this measure in North American and European French-speaking athletic populations,colloquialisms were avoided. Also, expressions pertaining to a specific sport were avoided tobroaden the applicability of the questionnaire across sports. Finally, items were worded so as tobe applicable for the assessment of coping strategies used before, during, and after competitions.

Assessment of items’ clarity, applicability, and content relevance

An initial pool of 111 items was administrated to five female and five male athletes from 14to 21 years of age (M=16.8; SD=2.5). Using a five-point Likert-type scale (1=totally unclear;5=totally clear), participants were instructed to rate the clarity of each item and to give commentsalong with alternative formulations for items that were not totally clear. Also, items were presentedto 10 coaches working in one of five individual sports (i.e. golf, tennis, badminton, alpine skiing,and figure skating) or five team sports (i.e. hockey, baseball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer).Using a dichotomous scale (applicable versus inapplicable), coaches were instructed to assessthe applicability of each item in their respective sport at each phase of a competition (i.e. pre-competition, competition, and post-competition). Accounting on the ratings provided by athletes


and coaches, and on their numerous comments, several items were rewritten in order to improvetheir clarity and to broaden their applicability across sports and phases of the competition.

The resulting bank of items was reviewed by two graduate students and by one senior researcherinvolved in previous coping investigations. These experts were asked to assess the content rel-evance and the homogeneity of the 10 scales. Using a written definition of the 10 coping strategies(see Table 1), experts were advised to place each item in one of the 10 scales. Also, they wereinstructed to insert irrelevant items in a category labeled ‘ irrelevant’ and to include ambiguousitems in more than one category. Sixteen items judged as irrelevant or as fitting within more thanone coping strategy by at least two experts were deleted from the bank of items.

Main research

ParticipantsThree hundred and sixteen French–canadian athletes (54% male, 46% female) from 14 to 28

years of age (M=17.4; SD=2.15) participated in this study. These athletes were competing ininternational (17%), national (20%), provincial (28%), and regional (35%) events at the time ofthe study. As a group, participants trained 12 hours weekly (SD=8.15) for a period of 41 weeksannually (SD=10.9). Their competitive experience ranged from 1 to 18 years (M=6.58; SD=3.66).Participants represented individual sports such as golf (13.4%), badminton (5%), figure skating(14%), gymnastic (2.5%), alpine skiing (4%), swimming (10.4%) and team sports such as ice-hockey (14.5%), deck-hockey (1.5%), baseball (11.7%), basketball (17.1%), and volleyball(5.9%).

MeasuresData were collected using a pen-and-paper self-report questionnaire divided into four sections.

The first section included general background information. Also, it included three items assessingperceived goal attainment (e.g. my performance was better than my expectations) and five itemsassessing perceived relevance of the competition (e.g. this competition was very important to me).All items were rated, respectively, on a Likert-type scale of seven or five points. Both scalesexhibited good internal consistency (a�0.80; Kline, 1998) and factorial validity. In addition, thefirst section contained an ad hoc French translation of the sense of control scale from the FlowState Scale (Jackson & Marsh, 1996). This scale contained four items rated on a five-point Likert-type scale (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree) and formed a single factor with good internalconsistency (a�0.80; Kline, 1998).

The second section contained the ISCCS questionnaire. The ISCCS comprised 95 items ratedon a five-point Likert-type scale (1=not used at all; 5=used very much). The third section wascomprised of variables that should correlate with the scales of the ISCCS. Fifty percent of parti-cipants completed a French–Canadian translation (Gaudreau, 2000) of the Positive and NegativeAffective Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), while other participants com-pleted a French translation (Debois & Fleurance, 1998) of the Competitive State Anxiety Inven-tory-2 (CSAI-2; Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990). The PANAS, a two-scale adjec-tive checklist, assesses 10 positive and 10 negative affects on a five-point Likert-type scale (1=notat all; 5=very much). The PANAS has been translated using a double back-translation procedure.Preliminary data indicated that the items distribution, inter-scales correlation, internal consistency,


and factorial structure were similar to those from the original PANAS (Gaudreau, 2000). TheCSAI-2, a multidimensional measure of competitive state anxiety, includes three scales of nineitems measuring cognitive state-anxiety, somatic state-anxiety, and state-confidence on a four-point Likert-type scale (1=not at all; 4=very much so). The CSAI-2 was translated using a back-translation procedure. Results of a principal components analysis conducted with 68 French gym-nasts corroborated the three-factor solution of the original CSAI-2 (Debois & Fleurance, 1998).

As in the third section, the fourth section assessed variables that should correlate with the scalesof the ISCCS. Participants completed one of the following questionnaires: a group of eight selectedsubscales from the French–Canadian translation (Gaudreau et al., in press) of the MCOPE(Crocker & Graham, 1995), the French–Canadian translation (Bouchard, Sabourin, Lussier,Wright, & Richer, 1997) of the WOCQ (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985), or the social desirabilityscale from the Questionnaire de Personnalite des Sportifs (QPS; Thill, 1979). The MCOPE hasbeen translated by three researchers using a committee procedure. The eight selected subscalesof the MCOPE (i.e. seeking instrumental social support, behavioral disengagement, suppression,venting of emotion, increased effort, positive reappraisal, planning, and mental disengagement)contained four items assessed on a five-point Likert-type scale (1=not used; 5=used very much).All subscales exhibited acceptable internal consistency in previous research (Gaudreau et al.,2001, in press), as well as in the present study (see Table 6). The French–Canadian WOCQwas comprised of 35 items representing four coping strategies: distancing/avoidance,confrontation/seeking social support, problem-focused coping, and denial. Each item was ratedon a four-point Likert-type scale (0=not used at all; 3=used a great deal). A confirmatory factoranalysis showed the reasonable goodness-of-fit for a four-factor model (e.g. GFI=0.92; CFI=0.89;RMSEA=0.07) with a sample of 1014 French–Canadian community participants (Bouchard et al.,1997). Finally, the social desirability scale from the QPS contained 16 items rated on a dichot-omous scale (true versus false). The scale formed a single scale with good internal consistencyin a previous research conducted with French athletes (Thill & Brenot, 1982).

ProcedureThirty coaches were contacted by the first author who provided them with an explanation of

the purposes and procedures of the research project. Twenty-seven coaches authorized us to meettheir athletes under their supervision at the end of a training session. During these meetings,athletes were asked if they would volunteer to participate in the study. They were told the exactpurpose of the study and they were made aware that the questionnaire needed to be completedwithin six hours after the completion of a competitive event. Also, they were told that the question-naire would take 40–60 min to complete. A strong emphasis was put on confidentiality of dataand athletes were instructed not to write their names on the questionnaire and to put it in anunmarked envelope before returning it to their coach. Also, the first author of this paper met theparticipants and their coaches at the practice site during the week following the competition inorder to debrief them and to recuperate their questionnaire.

Following the completion of the competition, coaches gave a questionnaire, a pen, and anenvelope to the athletes. Participants were instructed to be sincere, serious, and to complete theirquestionnaire individually in a quiet environment within six hours after the competition. Whencompleting the ISCCS, the selected scales from the MCOPE, and the WOCQ, participants wereinstructed to indicate to which extent the items represented the things that they had done or


thought during the competition they had just completed. As for the sense of control scale, thePANAS, and the CSAI-2, participants were instructed to indicate to which extent each item rep-resented how they had felt during the competition.

Analytical strategy and goodness-of-fit criteriaBecause the ISCCS was developed based on theoretical grounds, specific hypotheses regarding

which items should load significantly on which scale were suitable for confirmatory factor analy-sis. However, the weak variables-to-participants (Kline, 1998) and parameters-to-participantsratios (Tanaka, 1987) as well as the model generating purposes of this study hindered the accurateestimation of a full-factorial model. Based on recent research conducted in sport (Jackson &Marsh, 1996; Markland & Ingledew, 1997; Mullan, Markland, & Ingledew, 1997) and mainstreampsychology (Zautra et al., 1997), the factorial structure of the ISCCS was tested with a four-stagesequential confirmatory factor analysis (Joreskog, 1993).

In the first stage, each of the 10 proposed subscale was tested separately in order to eliminateitems that were poor indicators of their underlying latent construct. Items with a low standardizedfactor loading (�0.40) or a large standardized residuals (�±1.5) were deleted. Furthermore, anitem was deleted if a large modification index suggested that its residual could correlate withthose of other items. In the second stage, each subscale was paired with every other subscale inorder to eliminate items that could load significantly on a non-intended latent construct. A totalof 45 models were tested at this stage. Latent constructs were free to correlate in all models.Alike the first stage, items with low standardized factor loadings and with large standardizedresiduals were eliminated, along with items for which large modification indices suggested thatthey could load on an non-intended factor. Furthermore, an item was deleted if a large modificationindex suggested that its residual could correlate with those of other items. In the third stage, thestructural validity of the ISCCS was tested by grouping the subscales within their respectivefunctional dimension of coping. Two models were tested. Firstly, all TOC subscales (see Table1) were combined into a six-factor model. Secondly, all EOC subscales were combined into afour-factor model (see Table 1). Latent constructs were free to correlate in both models. Alikethe second stage, residuals were not allowed to correlate with those of other items. Finally, thefourth stage tested the full-factorial ISCCS model. Because of the heterogeneity of copingtypologies (Parker & Endler, 1992), it was relevant to assess whether the coping items couldsubsume into alternative models obtained in previous coping research. As suggested by the classi-cal distinction between TOC and EOC (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), it was decided to test thetenability of a two-factor model (i.e. all TOC items constrained on the first factor and all EOCitems constrained on the second factor). Also, moving by recent claims concerning the existenceof a third functional dimension of coping (i.e. avoidance-oriented coping), a three-factor modelwas tested (i.e all TOC items constrained on the first factor; mental distraction,disengagement/resignation, and social withdrawal items constrained on the second factor; ventingof emotion items constrained on the third factor). In assessing all models, latent constructs werefree to correlate and it was hypothesized that the 10-factor model would fit the data better thanany of the alternative models.

In order to assess whether the specified models matched the observed data, several fit indiceswere employed. Based on Hu and Bentler’s (1995) recommendations, model fit was assessedusing the chi-square statistic, the confirmatory fit index (CFI), the Tucker Lewis fit index (TLI),


and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). The CFI and the TLI values rangefrom 0 to 1 with values of 0.90 or greater showing acceptable fit of the model (e.g. Hu & Bentler,1995; Joreskog, 1993) and values of 0.95 or greater showing good fit of the model (Hu & Bentler,1999). For RMSEA, values of 0.08 or less indicate a reasonable fit of the data whereas valuesof 0.05 or less indicate a good fit of the data (Browne & Cudeck, 1993).

Results

Response rate

Four hundred and fifteen questionnaires were distributed to athletes during the course of theexperimentation. Of these questionnaires, 316 (76%) were returned to the researchers. Six parti-cipants were excluded from further analyses because their questionnaires had been completedimproperly (i.e. the same score on an entire page and/or systematic response pattern). Also, fourparticipants were excluded from further analyses because their multivariate response pattern onthe ISCCS differed significantly from the rest of the sample (Mahalanobis distance p�0.001; seeTabachnick & Fidell, 1996). Further analyses were conducted on a sample of 306 athletes.

Distribution of the ISCCS items

The univariate skewness values of the ISCCS items ranged from �0.91 to 3.58 and their univar-iate kurtosis values ranged from �1.27 to 13.61, thus suggesting that some items deviated severelyfrom a normal distribution. Consequently, seven items with a skewness greater than ±3 and akurtosis greater than ±8 were deleted from further analyses (Chou & Bentler, 1995; West, Finch, &Curran, 1995). As for the remaining 88 items, multivariate normality of the data was assessedusing Mardia’s coefficient of kurtosis. Results revealed that the multivariate joint distribution ofkurtosis was significant (Mardia’s kurtosis=277.01). To counter violations of multivariate nor-mality, Schumacker and Lomax (1996) recommended the use of asymptotic distribution free esti-mation procedures. However, these estimation procedures require a sample size of at least threetimes larger than the one available for the current study (Hu, Bentler, & Kano, 1992). Thus, itwas decided to use a maximum likelihood estimation procedure and to adjust the p-value of thechi-square statistic with the bootstrapping procedure of Bollen and Stine (1993) provided in theamos 4.0 software (Arbuckle, 1999). Results of recent simulation studies (Fouladi, 1997; Nevitt &Hancock, 1997) with non-normal data lent support to this decision by revealing that the Bollen–Stine corrected chi-square (BS chi-square) performed better than the Satorra–Bentler rescaled chi-square statistic (Bentler, 1995) with small samples.

Four-stage sequential confirmatory factor analysis

Stage 1: single-subscale analysisBased on the examination of the standardized factor loadings, standardized residuals, and modi-

fication indices, six items were deleted from the thought control subscale, two from mental ima-gery, four from relaxation, three from seeking support, five from logical analysis, four from effort


expenditure, two from social withdrawal, five from venting of unpleasant emotion, five frommental distraction, and two from disengagement/resignation. Following the deletion of these items,nine one-factor models exhibited a non-significant BS chi-square as well as CFI, and TLI greaterthan 0.95, and RMSEA below 0.05. However, the relaxation model was still significant and themodification indices suggested that allowing a correlation between the residual of item 22 anditem 36 might improve the model significantly. Because of our desire to keep at least four itemsper subscale to ensure identification of the model upon subsequent deletions of items, it wasdecided to allow those residuals to correlate freely. Freeing up this constraint, the one-factorrelaxation model became non-significant and all indices suggested its good fit. Results of theinitial and final models are presented in Table 2.

Stage 2: scale-pairing analysisThe second stage involved the pairing of each subscale with every other subscale in order to

eliminate items that could load significantly on an non-intended latent construct. A total of 45two-factor models were tested at this stage. In summary, results indicated that the fit of 30 modelswas satisfactory whereas the fit of 15 models could be improved upon. Based on the standardizedfactor loadings, the standardized residuals, and the modification indices, two items were deletedfrom the thought control subscale, two from effort expenditure, two from mental imagery, onefrom logical analysis, two from disengagement/resignation, one from social withdrawal, and onefrom venting of unpleasant emotion. Following deletion of these items, 44 models exhibited anon-significant BS chi-square as well as CFI, and TLI greater than 0.95, and RMSEA below 0.05.However, the relaxation-effort expenditure model remained significant (BS c2 (12) =13.50,p�0.05) and modification indices suggested that allowing the residuals of item 11 (i.e. relaxation)and item 92 (i.e. effort expenditure) to correlate freely would improve the model significantly.Because the effort expenditure consisted of only three items, it was decided to allow theseresiduals to correlate freely, as a two-item effort expenditure subscale led to a non-identifiedmodel. Freeing up this constraint, the model became non-significant (BS c2 (11) =12.56, p�0.05)with all indices suggesting its good fit.

Stage 3: functional dimensions of coping modelsAt this stage, it was decided to group the coping subscales that represent either TOC (i.e.

thought control, effort expenditure, logical analysis, seeking support, relaxation, and mentalimagery) or EOC (i.e. mental distraction, disengagement/resignation, venting of unpleasant emo-tion, and social withdrawal) into distinctive models that were tested separately. Firstly, a 23-itemsix-factor TOC model was tested. Secondly, a 16-item four-factor EOC model was tested. Bothmodels fitted the data well as exhibited by their non-significant BS chi-square, their CFI, and TLIvalues greater than 0.95 and their RMSEA below 0.05.

Stage 4: full-factorial modelThe fourth stage was aimed at testing the fit of a 39-item 10-factor model and comparing its

fit to alternative two- and three-factor models. Although the BS chi-square of the 10-factor modelwas significant, acceptable fit indices were obtained (CFI and TLI�0.90; RMSEA�0.05) (Tables3 and 4). Modification indices suggested the possibility of improving the model by allowing someitems’ residuals to correlate freely. Taking into consideration the conceptual distinction between


Table 2Fit indices of the one-factor models before (initial) and following (final) the deletion of items

Coping subscales c2 d.f. p BS c2 d.f. p CFI TLI RMSEA

Thought controlInitial model (12) 135.76 54 0.000* 62.29 54 0.001* 0.910 0.890 0.070Final model (6) 21.97 13 0.056 10.74 13 0.088 0.985 0.976 0.048

Mental imageryInitial model (8) 60.74 20 0.000* 24.24 20 0.001* 0.947 0.926 0.082Final model (6) 10.96 9 0.279 11.29 9 0.459 0.996 0.993 0.027

RelaxationInitial model (8) 90.57 20 0.000* 24.34 20 0.000* 0.888 0.843 0.108Final model 1 (4) 15.76 2 0.000* 3.16 2 0.006* 0.965 0.895 0.150Final model 2 (4) 1.01 1 0.314 1.31 1 0.380 1.00 1.00 0.007

Effort expenditureInitial model (9) 105.04 27 0.000* 34.47 27 0.000* 0.929 0.905 0.097Final model (5) 6.86 5 0.231 6.79 5 0.405 0.997 0.994 0.035

Logical analysisInitial model (10) 188.63 35 0.000* 40.62 35 0.000* 0.768 0.701 0.120Final model (5) 2.87 5 0.719 5.60 5 0.750 1.00 1.00 0.000

Seeking supportInitial model (7) 45.70 14 0.000* 16.93 14 0.001* 0.930 0.895 0.086Final model (4) 0.27 2 0.871 2.18 2 0.884 1.00 1.00 0.000

Venting of emotionInitial model (10) 170.39 35 0.000* 54.72 35 0.000* 0.872 0.835 0.113Final model (5) 1.85 5 0.872 6.68 5 0.911 1.00 1.00 0.000

Mental distractionInitial model (9) 71.67 27 0.000* 37.87 27 0.009* 0.931 0.908 0.074Final model (4) 0.63 2 0.729 3.54 2 0.839 1.00 1.00 0.000

DisengagementInitial model (8) 108.65 20 0.000 34.20 20 0.000* 0.854 0.796 0.121Final model (6) 11.70 9 0.231 15.42 9 0.631 0.993 0.988 0.031

Social withdrawalInitial model (7) 51.69 14 0.000 19.80 14 0.004* 0.943 0.915 0.094Final model (5) 8.50 5 0.131 6.26 5 0.237 0.991 0.983 0.048

Note: c2=chi-square statistic, BS c2=Bollen–Stine corrected chi-square statistic, CFI=Confirmatory fit index,TLI=Tucker Lewis index, RMSEA=Root mean square error of approximation. Numbers in the parentheses representthe number of item of the subscale. *p�0.05.

the TOC and EOC subscales of the ISCCS, it was decided not to allow free correlations betweentheir items’ residuals in order to protect against overfitting the model (Cliff, 1983). It is worthnoting that alternative models both provided poor fit to the data as suggested by their significantBS chi-square and their extremely low fit indices (CFI and TLI�0.70; RMSEA�0.07).


Table 3Fit indices for the submodels tested at the third stage and for the full-factorial models tested at the fourth stage ofthe analysis

Models c2 d.f. p BS c2 d.f. p CFI TLI RMSEA

Stage 3Task-orientedSix-factor model 299.65 213 0.000* 240.61 213 0.056 0.958 0.957 0.037

Emotion-orientedFour-factor model 134.58 98 0.008* 117.18 98 0.201 0.975 0.969 0.035

Stage 4Ten-factor model 910.27 652 0.000* 748.15 652 0.030* 0.931 0.921 0.036

Alternate modelsTwo-factor model 2250.39 695 0.000* 799.89 695 0.000* 0.583 0.556 0.086Three-factor model 1943.50 693 0.000* 795.39 696 0.000* 0.665 0.642 0.077

Note: c2=chi-square statistic, BS c2=Bollen–Stine corrected chi-square statistic, CFI=Confirmatory fit index,TLI=Tucker Lewis index, RMSEA=Root mean square error of approximation. *p�0.05.

Means, standard deviations and internal consistency

Based on the results of the four-stage sequential confirmatory factor analysis, means, standarddeviations, and Cronbach’s index of internal consistency were calculated for the 10 subscales ofthe ISCCS (see Table 5). All scores were summed unweighted and they are presented as per itemscores (i.e. totals divided by the number of items) to facilitate comparison across variables. Resultsfor the effort expenditure, mental imagery, relaxation, logical analysis, and thought control subs-cales showed that these strategies were used more frequently than strategies such as seekingsupport, venting of unpleasant emotion, social withdrawal, disengagement/resignation, and mentaldistraction. Cronbach’s index of internal consistency ranged from 0.67 to 0.87, with eight subs-cales showing acceptable alpha coefficient (a�0.70; Kline, 1998) and two subscales showingmoderately low alpha coefficient (0.60�a�0.70; Kline, 1998).

Inter-scales correlations

Inter-scales correlations and their standard errors of estimation were provided as part of thefourth stage of the sequential confirmatory factor analysis (see Table 5). Significant positive corre-lations were observed between thought control, mental imagery, relaxation, effort expenditure,seeking social support, and logical analysis. Also, significant positive correlations were observedbetween social withdrawal, disengagement/resignation, mental distraction, and venting ofunpleasant emotion.

Convergent validity

Bivariate Pearson correlations were used to assess the hypotheses bearing on the convergentrelationship between the ISCCS, MCOPE, and WOCQ subscales. Levels of significance were


Table 4Items wording, standardized factor loadings (SL), and their standard errors (SE) at the fourth stage of model testing

Coping items SL SE

Thought control (controle des pensees)J’ai essaye de ne pas me laisser intimider par les autres athletes (19). 0.486 —I tried not to be intimidated by other athletes.J’ai tente d’ eliminer mes doutes en pensant a des choses positives (45) 0.691 0.168I tried to block out my doubts by thinking positively.J’ai remplace mes pensees negatives par des pensees positives (58) 0.710 0.173I replaced my negative thoughts by positive ones.J’ai pense a mes bons coups plutot qu’ a mes erreurs (89) 0.614 0.161I tried not to think about my mistakes.

Mental imagery (imagerie mentale)J’ai visualise que j’ etais en plein controle de la situation (6) 0.653 —I visualized that I was in total control of the situation.J’ai repete mentalement l’execution de mes mouvements (35) 0.627 0.114I mentally rehearsed the execution of my movements.Je me suis imagine en train de faire une bonne performance (42) 0.686 0.107I imagined that I was doing a good performance.J’ai visualise ma meilleure performance a vie (86) 0.616 0.125I visualized my all-time best performance.

Relaxation (relaxation)J’ai tente de detendre mon corps (4) 0.698 —I tried to relax my body.J’ai essaye de reduire ma tension musculaire (11) 0.810 0.109I tried to reduce the tension in my muscles.J’ai fait des exercices de relaxation (22) 0.554 0.093I did some relaxation exercises.J’ai relaxe les muscles de mon corps (36) 0.733 0.101I relaxed my muscles.

Effort expenditure (deploiement des efforts)Je me suis applique en fournissant un effort constant (7) 0.671 —I applied myself by giving a consistent effort.J’ai fourni un effort acharne (50) 0.835 0.143I gave a relentless effortJ’ai fourni mon maximum d’effort (92) 0.734 0.119I gave my best effort.

Logical analysis (analyse logique)J’ai analyse mes performances anterieures (48) 0.517 —I analyzed my past performances.J’ai pense a des solutions possibles pour gerer la situation (66) 0.660 0.161I tried to find solutions in order to manage the situationJ’ai analyse les faiblesses de mes adversaires (74) 0.437 0.152I analyzed the weaknesses of my opponents.

(continued on next page)


Table 4 (continued)

Coping items SL SE

J’ai analyse les exigences de la competition (82) 0.675 0.167I analyzed the demands of the competition.

Seeking support (recherche de soutien)J’ai demande des conseils concernant ma preparation mentale (16) 0.535 —I asked someone for advice concerning my mental preparation.J’ai demande conseil a d’autres athletes (67) 0.628 0.190I asked other athletes for advice.Je me suis confie a une personne digne de confiance (78) 0.619 0.206I talked to a trustworthy person.J’ai parle a une personne qui est capable de me motiver (91) 0.664 0.221I talked to someone who is able to motivate me.

Venting of unpleasant emotion (ventilation des emotions deplaisantes)J’ai sacre (jurons, blasphemes, etc) dans ma tete ou a haute voix pour passer ma colere 0.596 —(25)I used swear-words loudly or in my head in order to vent my anger.J’ai exprime mon mecontentement (43) 0.779 0.110I expressed my discontentJe me suis fache (64) 0.920 0.112I got angryJ’ai exprime mes frustrations (73) 0.859 0.110I expressed my frustrations.

Mental distraction (distraction mentale)Je me suis occupe l’esprit pour penser a autre chose que la competition (46) 0.702 —I occupied my mind in order to think about other things than the competition.J’ai pense a mes loisirs favoris pour ne pas penser a la competition (59) 0.686 0.097I thought about my favorite leisure in order not to think about the competition.J’ai fait des choses divertissantes pour ne pas penser a la competition (70) 0.636 0.109I entertained myself in order not to think about the competition.J’ai pense a ma famille ou a mes amis pour me distraire (72) 0.642 0.110I thought about my family or about my friends to distract my mind.

Disengagement/resignation (desengagement/resignation)Je me suis laisser-aller au decouragement (10) 0.616 —I let myself feel hopeless and discouraged.J’ai souhaite que la competition se termine immediatement (39) 0.517 0.143I wished that the competition would end immediately.J’ai cesse de croire en ma capacite d’atteindre mon but (60) 0.523 0.123I stopped believing in my ability to reach my goal.J’ai perdu tout espoir de pouvoir atteindre mon but (93) 0.683 0.148I lost all hope of attaining my goal.

Social withdrawal (isolement social)Je me suis eloigne des autres athletes (3) 0.481 —I took my distance from other athletes.

(continued on next page)


Table 4 (continued)

Coping items SL SE

Je me suis eloigne dans un endroit favorable a la reflexion (49) 0.683 0.248I retreated where it was easy to think.J’ai recherche le silence (81) 0.726 0.241I searched for calmness and quietness.J’ai fait le vide autour de moi (83) 0.578 0.225I kept all people at a distance.

Note: English wording of items has not been subjected to a back-translation procedure and should not beinterpreted as valid for use in research. Number in the parentheses represents the number of an item in thequestionnaire. Dashes indicate that the parameters were not estimated. All standardized factor loadings aresignificant at p�0.05.

corrected with a Bonferroni procedure (p=a/10=0.005) in order to prevent the occurrence of Type-I error (Stevens, 1996). Prior to these analyses, means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s indexof internal consistency were calculated for the WOCQ and MCOPE subscales (see Table 6).Six MCOPE subscales exhibited good internal consistency (0.79�a�0.90; Kline, 1998) whereasbehavioral disengagement and suppression of competing activities exhibited a moderately lowinternal consistency (0.60�a�0.70; Kline, 1998). All subscales were retained for further analyses.Concerning the WOCQ, the confrontation/seeking social support and problem-focused subscales’internal consistency were within reasonable range (0.70�a�0.80; Kline, 1998) whereas thedistancing/avoidance subscale’ internal consistency was moderately low (0.60�a�0.70; Kline,1998). However, the denial subscale (a=0.33) exhibited a very low alpha coefficient and wasdiscarded from further analyses.

Two sets of analyses examined the relationships between the ISCCS and the MCOPE subscales,and between the ISCCS and the WOCQ subscales, respectively. Several ISCCS subscales corre-lated significantly with the subscales of the MCOPE and the WOCQ. Results of these analysesare presented in Table 7.

Concurrent validity

The relationship between the ISCCS subscales and appraisal variables (i.e. perceived goalattainment, perceived relevance of the competition, and sense of control), affective variables (i.e.positive affect, negative affect, cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and confidence), and socialdesirability was assessed with bivariate Pearson correlations using a Bonferroni correction. Priorto these analyses, means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s index of internal consistency werecalculated for the nine selected variables (see Table 6). All variables exhibited good internalconsistency (a�0.80; Kline, 1998), with the exception of social desirability, which exhibited amoderately low alpha coefficient. All variables were retained for further analyses.

A first set of analyses bore on the relationship between ISCCS subscales and each appraisalvariable whereas a second set of analyses assessed the relationship between ISCCS subscales andeach affective variable. Several subscales of the ISCCS correlated with perceived relevance ofthe competition, sense of control, perceived goal attainment, positive affect, negative affect, cogni-


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ical

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Table 6Means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s index of internal consistency for appraisal, affective, coping, and socialdesirability variables

Variables M SD a

Appraisal variablesPerceived relevance of competitiona 17.09 4.75 0.797Sense of controla 14.39 3.14 0.826Perceived goal attainmentb 11.66 3.62 0.893

Affective variablesPositive affectc 37.09 6.69 0.867Negative affectc 19.76 6.07 0.799Cognitive anxiety-stated 16.48 4.83 0.817Somatic anxiety-stated 16.76 4.85 0.811Confidence-stated 24.05 5.56 0.848

MCOPE subscalese

Instrumental social support 2.26 0.94 0.786Behavioral disengagement 1.48 0.60 0.621Planning 2.83 0.92 0.815Suppression of competing activities 2.81 0.85 0.683Venting of emotions 1.76 0.86 0.896Increased effort 3.63 0.83 0.866Positive reappraisal 3.28 0.88 0.875Mental disengagement 2.12 0.84 0.807

WOCQ subscalesf

Distancing/avoidance 1.73 0.51 0.607Confrontation/seeking social support 2.53 0.54 0.743Problem-focused 1.72 0.47 0.735Denial 1.90 0.48 0.331

Social desirabilityg 13.36 3.67 0.669

Note: means and standard deviations of the MCOPE and WOCQ subscales are presented as per item scores tofacilitate comparison across variables. aN=306, bN=301, cN=147, dN=157, eN=108, fN=97, gN=96.

tive state-anxiety, and somatic state-anxiety. These results are presented in Table 8. A final setof analyses concerned the relationship between ISCCS subscales and social desirability. Copingstrategies of the ISCCS did not correlate significantly with social desirability.

Differential validity

The purpose of this analysis was to examine the effect of athletes’ level of expertise (i.e.international, national, provincial, or regional) and gender on their use of the ISCCS coping stra-tegies. A factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), using the 10 coping subscalesas dependent variables and both the level of expertise and gender as independent variables, wasperformed. Because of the small number of males in the international athletes subgroup, nationaland international athletes were combined in a subgroup labeled ‘elite athletes’ . Therefore, anExpertise (3)×Gender (2) analysis was conducted.


Tab

le7

Cor

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betw

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subs

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Table 8Correlation between subscales of the ISCCS, appraisal variables, affective variables, and social desirability

Coping Appraisal variables Affective variablesstrategies

PRC SOC PGA PA NA SCOG SSOM SCON SD

Thought control 0.23*** 0.21*** 0.19*** 0.42*** 0.06 �0.13 0.05 0.29*** 0.21*Mental imagery 0.31*** 0.26*** 0.20*** 0.46*** 0.10 �0.03 0.13 0.29*** 0.08Relaxation 0.28*** 0.15** 0.11 0.35*** �0.02 0.06 0.14 0.06 �0.08Effort 0.35*** 0.35*** 0.38*** 0.58*** 0.05 �0.19* 0.09 0.15 0.18expenditureLogical analysis 0.29*** 0.11 0.12* 0.43*** 0.20* 0.27*** 0.21** 0.05 0.04Seeking support 0.08 0.10* 0.16*** 0.28*** 0.14 0.21** 0.12 0.04 0.23*Social 0.11 �0.06 �0.05 0.10 0.29*** 0.07 0.06 0.14 0.07withdrawalMental �0.12* �0.05 0.01 �0.08 0.10 0.27*** 0.06 0.03 0.17distractionDisengagement/ �0.17*** �0.45*** �0.39*** �0.44*** 0.35*** 0.50*** 0.19* �0.24*** �0.11resignationVenting of 0.09 �0.25*** �0.26*** �0.05 0.43*** 0.18* 0.18* 0.07 �0.14unpleasantemotion

Note: PRC=perceived relevance of competition, SOC=sense of control, PGA=perceived goal attainment,PA=positive affect, NA=negative affect, SCOG=cognitive anxiety-state, SSOM=somatic anxiety-state, SCON=stateconfidence, SD=social desirability. *p�0.05; **p�0.01; ***p�0.005 (Bonferroni correction a/10).

Whereas the multivariate Expertise×Gender effect was non-significant (Wilk’s l=0.93, F (20,580) =1.14, p�0.05, h2=0.04), the Expertise (Wilk’s l=0.81, F (20, 580) =6.80, p�0.001,h2=0.10) and Gender (Wilk’s l=0.87, F (20, 580) =5.62, p�0.001, h2=0.14) multivariate maineffects reached significance. Correcting the levels of significance with a Bonferroni procedure(p=a/10=0.005), the univariate main effects for the expertise and gender factors were examinedwith univariate ANOVAs. Mental imagery (F (2, 299) =6.30, p�0.005, h2=0.02), relaxation (F(2, 299) =12.23, p�0.005, h2=0.01), venting of unpleasant emotion (F (2, 299) =6.80, p�0.005,h2=0.01), and effort expenditure (F (2, 299) =7.22, p�0.005, h2=0.01) differed significantly acrossathletes’ expertise whereas venting of unpleasant emotion was more frequent among males thanfemales (F (1, 299) =16.80, p�0.005, h2=0.05) and effort expenditure was more frequent amongfemales than males (F (1, 299) =11.57, p�0.005, h2=0.03). Follow-ups were conducted withTukey a test for unequal subgroup size (Stevens, 1996). Results of these analyses revealed thatelite athletes used more mental imagery and effort expenditure than regional athletes. Also, eliteathletes used more relaxation and less venting of unpleasant emotion than both provincial andregional athletes.


Discussion

Factorial structure of the ISCCS

A first aim of this research was to develop a sport-specific questionnaire for the assessment ofathletes’ coping actions in competitive sport settings, while providing preliminary evidence forits factorial validity. Because the questionnaire was created using a theoretical approach to scaledevelopment (Clark & Watson, 1995; DeVellis, 1991), a sequential four-stage confirmatory factoranalysis was employed in order to refine it without departing from an hypothesis-testing approach(Joreskog, 1993; Markland & Ingledew, 1997). The first and second stages resulted in the deletionof 49 items that were unreliable indicators of their underlying latent construct. Several items weredeleted because their residuals were associated with the residual of other items. Fewer itemswould have been deleted if residuals had been allowed to correlate freely. However, such a pro-cedure would have enhanced the risk of capitalizing on chance while threatening the externalvalidity of the model (Cliff, 1983). As suggested by several researchers (Byrne, 2001; Joreskog,1993), correlated residuals often signify high content overlap or redundancy between items. Theelimination of these items was appropriate as it minimized content redundancy and shortened thequestionnaire significantly, a most convenient advantage in competitive sport settings, withoutaffecting its content broadness and relevance.

The third and fourth stages were aimed at providing preliminary evidence for the factorialvalidity of the ISCCS. As such, results provided reasonable support by showing the good fit oftwo theoretically derived submodels (i.e the six-factor TOC model and the four-factor EOC model)and the acceptable fit of a full 10-factor model. The 10-factor model was further compared withalternate two- and three-factor models. As hypothesized, a 10-factor model fitted the data betterthan both alternate models. This finding converged with the results of the qualitative studies(Eklund, 1996; Gould et al., 1993a; Prapavessis & Grove, 1995; Wingate, 1993) upon which theISCCS was created. These studies showed that individuals can use a plethora of coping actionsto manage the demands of specific stressful situations. For instance, Gould and his collaborators(1993) reported 158 first-order themes, corresponding to specific coping actions used by UnitedStates National champion figure skaters. Similarly, Kondo (1997) reported 80 specific copingactions used by college students during episode of examination stress. The superiority of a 10-first-order-factor model over a two- or a three-first-order-factor model seems tenable as the formermight better capture the complexity and uniqueness of athletes’ coping actions in competitivesport settings.

Regardless of the above findings portraying that each coping strategy corresponds to a set ofsimilar, homogeneous, and well delineating coping actions, a possibility remains that a hierarchicalsecond-order solution, representing higher-order functional dimensions of coping, might exist forthe ISCCS. Considering the model generating purpose of this study as well as its weak parameters-to-participants ratio (Tanaka, 1987), it was decided not to test the hierarchical factor structure ofthe ISCCS. In the absence of direct evidence, the inter-scales correlation matrix neverthelessprovided indirect evidences for the existence of a second-order factorial structure for the ISCCSas its subscales were moderately inter-correlated. The first set of associations seems to representa cluster of TOC strategies (i.e. thought control, mental imagery, relaxation, effort expenditure,logical analysis, and seeking support) whereas the second set seems to represent a mixture of


emotion (i.e. social withdrawal and venting of emotion) and avoidance-oriented coping strategies(i.e. mental distraction and disengagement/resignation). The former cluster might encompass con-structs that are similar to basic psychological skills (Murphy & Tammen, 1998), as they representactions of athletes aimed at changing or mastering actively the external and internal demands ofa sport competition. The latter cluster might correspond to indirect actions of athletes aimed atreducing internal demands and pressure or to avoid the external demands associated with a givencompetition. Overall, this finding is in accordance with our review of the recent literature and,more specifically, it tends to corroborate that the ISCCS in fact integrates basic psychologicalskills (Murphy & Tammen, 1998) with the EOC strategies reported in recent qualitative studiesconducted in sport settings (Eklund, 1996; Gould et al., 1993a; Prapavessis & Grove, 1995).

Despite the attractiveness of hierarchical solutions, there is the possibility that the assumptionsof classical psychometric theory (Nunnally, 1978) could be violated in second-order factor analy-sis of coping questionnaires. In view of the complexity of the coping construct, it might beunrealistic to assume that each coping strategy should load only on one functional dimension.Because of their situation-driven nature, their high inter-individual variability, and their multipledeterminants, coping strategies might serve different functions for different individuals in differentstressful situations (Coyne & Gottlieb, 1996; Oakland & Ostell, 1996). Results of second-orderfactor analyses conducted on the COPE subscales (Carver et al., 1989) lent credence to thisassertion by indicating that venting of emotion loaded simultaneously on an avoidance- and onan emotion-oriented second-order factor (Stewart & Schwarzer, 1996) whereas positive reappraisalloaded on both a task- and an emotion-oriented second-order factor (Hudek-Knezevic et al., 1999).A second limitation for hierarchical models of coping pertains to the absence of clear theoreticalguidelines addressing the number of functional dimensions of coping. As such, whether a two-(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), a three- (Endler & Parker, 1994; Amirkhan, 1990), or a four-second-order-factor model (Moos, 1993; Phelps & Jarvis, 1994; Zautra et al., 1997) should account forthe variance of coping strategies might depend on the magnitude of their inter-scales correlations,on the content broadness of the coping questionnaire, as well as on the situation in which copingactions are employed. Despite these limitations, future research should test whether the copingstrategies of the ISCCS can be organized in a hierarchical model with a simplex structure thatreplicates across samples of athletes (i.e. between-group invariance) as well as across the distinc-tive phases of a given competition (i.e. longitudinal invariance).

Convergent validity

Along with providing preliminary evidence for the factorial validity of the ISCCS, the secondgoal of this study was to assess its convergent association with subscales of the MCOPE and theWOCQ. The first set of hypotheses was guided by the moderate conceptual overlap betweensome of the ISCCS (i.e. effort expenditure, thought control, seeking support, mental distraction,disengagement/resignation, and venting of unpleasant emotion) and MCOPE subscales (i.e.increased effort, positive reappraisal, seeking social support, mental disengagement, behavioraldisengagement, and venting of emotion). As expected, these subscales correlated meaningfullyand shared from 27 to 64% of their variance. These moderately high associations brought supportfor the convergent validity of these ISCCS subscales. Moreover, their originality, sport relevance,


and content broadness might have accounted for the moderate and interesting part of unexplainedvariance in their relationships with the MCOPE subscales.

The second set of hypotheses bore on the relationships between the ISCCS and MCOPE subs-cales corresponding to either a TOC or an EOC functional dimension of coping. As they representthe same functional dimension of coping, TOC subscales from both questionnaires, on one hand,and EOC subscales from both questionnaires, on the other hand, were expected to covary. Resultsprovided some evidence for this hypothesis as several subscales of the ISCCS correlated meaning-fully with their MCOPE counterparts. Whereas the TOC subscales of the ISCCS shared from 7to 38% of their variance with those of the MCOPE, the EOC subscales shared from 6 to 17% oftheir respective variance. These moderate relationships between several MCOPE and ISCCS sub-scales provided support for the validity of the latter as its subscales tapped original and distinctivecoping strategies that nonetheless share a similar functionality with those of the MCOPE.

Despite the compelling evidence for the convergent validity of the ISCCS, some associationsbetween the ISCCS and MCOPE unexpectedly failed to correlate meaningfully. The first concernwas the positive association between the seeking support subscale with both the TOC and EOCsubscales of the MCOPE. As noted by Carver and his collaborators (1989), seeking support canserve more than one function in a given stressful situation. In competitive sport settings, seekingout advice from athletes and coaches might represent a task-oriented strategy in some circum-stances, as it helps an athlete to solve his technical, tactical, or mental problems. However, itmight constitute an emotion-oriented strategy under other conditions, as athletes use it to avoidan unpleasant situation, to create a mental diversion, or to express their negative feelings. Thekey in understanding the functional role of this strategy might be to assess the social environmentin which it is used. For instance, using this strategy in the presence of competent individuals whocan provide useful advice might help the performance of an athlete whereas using it in a socialenvironment offering irrelevant feedback might entail only disengagement and resignation. Thesecond concern was the positive association of social withdrawal with some TOC subscales ofthe MCOPE. On one hand, the effort to withdraw from other individuals and to limit socialcontacts in order to think, appraise, and rehearse the course of actions involved in a stressfulsituation might encourage the use of task-oriented strategies such as relaxation, mental imagery,and positive reappraisal. On the other hand, the use of this strategy might also lead to mentaldistraction and avoidance of the stressful situation. Clearly, researchers should investigate theconditions in which social withdrawal promotes task-oriented actions as well as those in whichit leads to avoidance of stressful events.

The final set of convergent hypotheses bore on the relationship between three reliable subscalesof the WOCQ and those of the ISCCS. Accounting for their conceptual similarities, TOC subscalesof the ISCCS were expected to correlate with the confronting/seeking social support scale of theWOCQ whereas EOC subscales of the ISCCS were expected to correlate with thedistancing/avoidance scale of the WOCQ. As expected, the distancing/avoidance scale of theWOCQ correlated positively with the EOC subscales of the ISCCS (i.e.disengagement/resignation, mental distraction, venting of unpleasant emotion, and socialwithdrawal) with which it shared from 11 to 24% of variance. Also, the confrontation/seekingsocial support scale of the WOCQ correlated positively with the TOC subscales of the ISCCS(i.e. mental imagery, seeking support, logical analysis, and effort expenditure), with 21–37% ofshared variance. Even if they support validity of the ISCCS, these results need to be interpreted


with some caution as the four-factor model of the WOCQ was developed solely on empiricalgrounds. As such, it should be mentioned that the factorial structure of the French–Canadiantranslation of the WOCQ might fluctuate across samples (Parker et al., 1993) because it has neverbeen cross-validated on independent samples and because it has never been tested in competitivesport settings. At best, the associations of the ISCCS with the WOCQ subscales might facilitate thecomparison of results across research settings as the latter questionnaire is still widely employed inmainstream psychology.

Concurrent validity

The third goal of this paper was to assess the relationship of the ISCCS subscales with cognitiveappraisal and affective variables. Despite the hypothesized proximal role of primary appraisal onthe use of coping strategies (Hardy et al., 1996; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), previous studiesconducted in sport settings have overlooked the impact of athletes’ perceived relevance of acompetition, a primary appraisal variable. However, in the present study, in accordance with well-established theoretical assumptions (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the use of TOC (i.e. thoughtcontrol, mental imagery, relaxation, effort expenditure, and logical analysis) increased with ath-letes’ perceived relevance of a competition. As expected, there seems to be no need for TOC incompetitions in which nothing is at stake as well as in competitions in which the demands areperceived as non-threatening or as non-challenging. Thus, perceived relevance of a competitionmight be necessary for any coping strategy to be used by athletes who otherwise might becomepassive, disengaged, and less energized in situations that are perceived as being irrelevant andnon-challenging.

The second set of analyses tested the relationship of the ISCCS subscales with perceived senseof control and perceived performance goal attainment. Concerning the former variable, previousresearch has indicated that athletes’ use of TOC increased with their level of self-efficacy(Haney & Long, 1995) and perceived control (Anshel & Kaissidis, 1997; Kim & Duda, 1999).As expected and in accordance with these studies, athletes’ sense of control increased with theiruse of thought control, mental imagery, and effort expenditure whereas it decreased with theiruse of venting of unpleasant emotion and disengagement/resignation. Perceiving oneself as beingin control of a situation might lessen the necessity of managing its unpleasantness and mightfavor the use of actions oriented toward direct regulation of external demands. As for the relation-ship between coping and performance, it has been found that athletes’ use of TOC increased withtheir normative performance (Finch, 1994; Haney & Long, 1995) and with their performance goalattainment (Gaudreau et al., 2001). As expected and in accordance with the results of these studies,athletes’ level of perceived goal attainment was associated positively with their use of thoughtcontrol, mental imagery, effort expenditure, and seeking support. In accordance with the basicpsychological skills literature (Hardy et al., 1996; Murphy & Tammen, 1998; Thomas et al.,1999), it might be that using these coping strategies during the course of a competition actuallypromotes goal attainment. However, an alternative hypothesis should not to be ruled out, as attain-ment of ones’ performance goal might facilitate the use of TOC in the course of a competition(Gaudreau et al., 2001). Whether some coping strategies facilitate goal attainment or whetherperceived goal attainment encourages their use is an issue that needs clarification in future studies.

Over the years, several theoretical systems (Cerin et al., 2000; Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folk-


man, 1984) have assumed a close relationship between coping and emotions in the course ofstressful encounters. Based on substantive research conducted in sport (Crocker & Graham, 1995;Gaudreau et al., 2001; Ntoumanis et al., 1999), academic (Carver & Scheier, 1994; Clark et al.,1995), child (Crook, Beaver, & Bell, 1998), and health psychology (Billings, Folkman, Acree, &Moskowitz, 2000), athletes’ use of TOC was expected to increase with positive affect, whereastheir use of EOC was expected to increase with negative affect. In fact, in the present study,athletes’ use of TOC strategies increased with their in-competition positive affect whereas theiruse of EOC strategies increased with their in-competition negative affect. Although they supportthe concurrent validity of the ISCCS, these results might have been influenced by several interven-ing variables such as athletes’ perceived efficacy of coping (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1998), motiv-ational orientation (Ntoumanis et al., 1999), and goal attainment (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Gaud-reau et al., 2001). Future research should explore the mediating and/or moderating roles of thesevariables in the relationship of coping with affect.

Multidimensional anxiety has received a tremendous amount of theoretical (Hanin, 1989;Hardy, 1990; Jones, 1991; Martens et al., 1990) and empirical (Burton, 1998) attention from sportscientists. Despite the advances in research pertaining to the anxiety-performance relationship(Kleine, 1990), little progress has been made in identifying the antecedents of competitive stateanxiety. Acknowledging the centrality of state anxiety in the sport psychology literature as wellas the paucity of research linking it to coping, Ntoumanis and Biddle (2000) explored the coping-anxiety relationship in a sample of 356 athletes. Stemming from their preliminary results, it wasexpected that TOC strategies would increase with somatic anxiety whereas EOC strategies wouldincrease with cognitive anxiety. In accordance with this hypothesis, our results indicated thatathletes’ use of venting of emotion, disengagement/resignation, and mental distraction increasedwith their negative expectations and worries about one’s capabilities and potential for failure (i.e.cognitive anxiety). However, results for somatic state-anxiety were contrary to expectations, asit was not significantly associated with TOC strategies, while at the same time, its relationship withEOC strategies almost reached significance. As suggested by Jones (1991), the coping-anxietyrelationship might depend on athletes’ interpretation of their cognitive and somatic symptoms. Inthis perspective, Eubank and Collins (2000) observed that athletes, who perceived their anxietyas facilitative used more active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, positivereappraisal, and acceptance than athletes who perceived it as debilitative. However, this studyfailed to provide separate data for the cognitive and somatic components of competitive stateanxiety. Clearly, future research should examine whether perceiving one’s cognitive and somaticstate anxiety as facilitative or debilitative might reflect on some of the ISCCS coping subscales.

Differential validity

The final goal of this paper was to explore whether the use of the ISCCS coping strategiesdiffered across athletes’ levels of expertise and genders. Based on the results of numerous qualitat-ive (Orlick & Partington, 1988; McCaffrey & Orlick, 1989) and quantitative investigations(Madden et al., 1989; Thomas et al., 1999), it was expected that elite athletes (i.e. internationaland national) would use more TOC strategies and less EOC strategies than their provincial andregional counterparts. Results lent partial credence to this hypothesis as elite athletes used more


mental imagery, relaxation, and effort expenditure as well as less venting of unpleasant emotionthan their less proficient counterparts.

Although quite compelling by nature, such evidence in favor of the differential validity of theISCCS should be interpreted with extreme caution. The present research was not designed exclus-ively for testing the use of coping strategies across athletes’ levels of expertise and genders. Thus,the post-hoc nature of the research design remains an important concern, as several confoundingvariables were not controlled. Firstly, international level female athletes (n=42) were more rep-resented in our sample than their male counterparts (n=10). Consequently, the greater use of effortexpenditure and the lesser use of venting of emotion among female athletes of this sample mightbe an artifact of their superior level of expertise. Secondly, international and national level compe-titions are relatively rare in Canada, so that a majority of elite athletes had to be assessed afterthe completion of a provincial competition. Thus, it is debatable whether the challenge of thesecompetitions was sufficient to provide a valid portrait of the coping actions employed by theseathletes. As such, future research should counteract this limitation either by using a MANCOVA,with athletes’ perceived relevance of the competition as covariate, or by assessing athletes’ copingstrategies after competitions that are congruent with their own level of expertise. Thirdly, resultsof the analysis of variance indicated that the within-group variance was superior to between-groupvariance for some coping strategies. As such, the within-group heterogeneity suggested that sev-eral intervening variables need to be accounted for in order to develop a valid portrait of copingstrategies used by athletes of both genders and different levels of expertise. Among potentialintervening factors, the type of sport and the athletes’ competitive experience might moderate theuse of coping strategies. For instance, individual sports might facilitate the use of social with-drawal, whereas team sports might encourage the seeking of support. This interesting possibilityshould be tested using factorial design, for example with expertise, gender, and type of sport asindependent variables, and years of competitive experience as a covariable. Because of its post-hoc nature and considering the unequal number of participants per subgroups in the present study,it was decided not to test this hypothesis as the risk of capitalizing on chance was too important.

Conclusions

The results presented in this paper provided preliminary evidence for the reliability and for thefactorial, convergent, concurrent, and differential validity of the ISCCS. Despite these encouragingfindings, three types of limitations must be acknowledged. The first concern pertains to the useof a sequential confirmatory factor analysis. Although providing a way of developing and refiningquestionnaires without departing from an hypothesis-testing approach, sequential approaches aredriven by the characteristics of a given sample and might enhance the possibility of developingmodels that are sample specific (MacCallum, Roznowski, & Newcowitz, 1992). Thus, the presentresearch should be interpreted as presenting the development and the calibration of a new copingmeasure as well as a preliminary test of its validity. Future research should address the issue ofexternal validity by assessing whether the factorial model of the ISCCS can be replicated acrosssamples. Because elite athletes might use more TOC strategies than both provincial and regionalathletes and because the use of some coping strategies may differ between genders, future researchshould test for the factorial invariance of the ISCCS across both the level of expertise and gender


factors. Also, the ISCCS should be administered to European as well as North-American Frenchspeaking athletes in order to assess its factorial stability across cultures.

The second issue pertains to the retrospective and cross-sectional design of this research.Because it was decided to assess their in-competition coping actions, athletes were asked to com-plete the ISCCS within six hours of the completion of a competition. Although the retrospectivedelay was short in comparison with previous coping research conducted in sport settings, severalbiases might have affected the validity of the data (Smith, Leffingwell, & Ptacek, 1999). Withthe passage of time, research participants tend to attribute their successes to internal causes andtheir failures to external ones. Thus, conditions of success might produce an overestimation ofthe TOC reported by athletes whereas conditions of failure might produce an underestimation ofthese coping strategies. Because of a possible self-enhancement bias, the relationship of copingwith both appraisal and affective variables should be interpreted with some caution. Futureresearch should be designed so as to minimize the post-competition retrospective delay withoutdeparting from the practical and ethical considerations embedded with this necessity. Finally,considering that the use of coping strategies might differ across the phases of a given sportcompetition (Gaudreau et al., in press; Gaudreau et al., 2001), a third problem could arise fromthe cross-sectional design of this research. Because the ISCCS was developed for the measurementof pre-, in-, and post-competitive coping strategies of athletes, future research should assess copingat multiple points in a given competition in order to test the factorial stability of the ISCCS acrossthe phases of a sport competition.

In spite of these limitations, this research provided a promising, theoretically based sport-spe-cific coping instruments for the assessment of athletes’ coping strategies in both individual andteam sports. Despite the convenience of using self-report instruments in coping research, a thor-ough understanding of athletes’ coping actions will necessitate the use of various research method-ologies. As such, multiple methods including sport-specific self-report measures, semi-structureinterviews, and daily diaries should not be overlooked by researchers as they might render adeeper and more valuable portrait of the social, environmental, and cognitive factors that mightencourage or hinder the use of certain coping strategies.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by doctoral fellowships from the Fonds pour la Formation deChercheurs et l’Aide a la Recherche, from la Faculte des Etudes Superieures de l’Universite deMontreal, and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded tothe first author. The authors would like to thank Genevieve Bouchard, Nadine Debois, PhilippeFleurance, and Edgard Thill for making their respective questionnaires available for this project.

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