Participation in organized youth sport has been shown to have many positive benefits. Self-determination theory, and more specifically, basic psychological needs theory has been applied extensively to the youth sport context to examine the satisfaction and thwarting of athletes' three innate psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness). Youth sport coaches have been shown to influence the satisfaction or thwarting of athletes' basic psychological needs, and ultimately, motivation in sport. However, measurement of the coach's influence on basic need satisfaction and thwarting in sport has been largely inconsistent, as there is not a standard instrument that has been widely adopted. The Interpersonal Behaviors Questionnaire in Sport is an instrument that examines athlete perceptions of coach interpersonal behaviors that support or thwart basic psychological needs. This instrument addresses some of the previous measurement-related gaps by measuring all three basic needs simultaneously and attributing athlete basic need satisfaction and thwarting directly to the coach's influence. While different sources of validity evidence (e.g., internal structure, relations to other variables) for responses to the IBQ have been provided for adults, only validity evidence for relations to other variables (e.g., coach-athlete relationship quality, intentions to continue sport participation) has been provided with youth. Moreover, potential problems with internal structure for youths' responses to the IBQ have recently been noted in the literature. To contribute to the growing body of literature examining the coach's influence on basic need satisfaction and motivation in youth sport, a measurement tool designed for youth sport participants is necessary. Thus, the current project aims to establish an instrument to measure youth athletes' perceptions of coach behaviors (i.e., youth version of the IBQ) that support or thwart basic psychological needs.This project consists of three integrated studies contributing toward the establishment of a℗ youth version of the IBQ. The purpose of Study 1 is to provide initial validity evidence for modification of the IBQ in Sport for youth by empirically examining the internal structure for youth athletes' responses to the IBQ. Study 2 aims to identify and then modify problematic IBQ items to create the Youth Interpersonal Behaviors Questionnaire in Sport (Y-IBQ). The purpose of Study 3 is to examine the psychometric properties of the newly developed Y-IBQ in a youth athlete population. The completion of these study aims will provide initial validity evidence for the Y-IBQ instrument in a youth athlete population and thereby improve measurement of the coach's influence on athlete basic need satisfaction in sport.
Read
