Psychometric evaluation of goal orientation measures in sport

Abstract

The concept of achievement goals has received increasing attention in recent years among researchers in sport psychology. The two types of goal orientation conceived in academic settings, namely 'task' and 'ego', have been the focus of much research and form the basis of several instruments designed to measure achievement goals in sport. The unmodified use of these constructs has been criticized, however, and some caution needs to be exercised in employing the existing scales. The current paper reviews recent arguments relating to the concepts termed goal orientation and goal involvement. It also provides an empirical examination of these critiques through close scrutiny of data collected from 201 athletes who completed four different instruments purporting to measure goal orientation. Confirmatory factor analysis and “latent-trait” Rasch analyses were performed on scores obtained from these measures. Results confirmed that the concept of goal orientation should be further operationalized and the concepts better defined. Furthermore, the establishment of specific measurement tools for goal involvement and orientation has to be preceded by a clear conceptual distinction between the two concepts, and a clear definition of the components and structure of a transitory state of goal involvement.