Development and Validation of Psychological Skills Scale for Hockey Players and Cricketers

Abstract

The present research was carried to develop an indigenous, valid, and reliable scale to assess psychological skills of hockey players and cricketers. An initial item pool of 130 items was generated through detailed, open-ended, and semi-structured interviews with six international hockey players and two international cricketers, whereas, a preliminary questionnaire was administered on 518 players (261 hockey players and 257 cricketers). Principal Factor Analysis with Varimax rotation postulated 84 items with three distinct factors: Psycho-Performance Skills, Perceived Psychological Support, and Psycho-Competitiveness. The internal consistency of the items for Psychological Skills Scale for Hockey Players and Cricketers was determined by using Cronbach’s alpha that emerged .94 for final 84 items, whereas, Psycho-Performance Skills, Perceived Psychological Support, and Psycho-Competitiveness had .92, .90, and .87 reliability; respectively. Further researches can be conducted to confirm these three factors extracted through this study by including other sports or considering various other psychological skills of hockey players and cricketers. This research would be helpful for Pakistan Hockey Federation and Pakistan Cricket Board to determine psychological profiling of cricketers and develop psychological profiling system based on the results of Psychological Skills Scale for hockey players and cricketers.

Psychological Skills and Performance Efficacy in Hockey Players: The Mediating Role of Sportsmanship

“…Psychological Skills Scale for Hockey Players and Cricketers (Solomon, Malik & Kausar, 2019) that consisted of 84 items with three sub-scales: Psycho-Performance Skills, Perceived Psychological Support and Psycho-Competitiveness included 38, 24 and 22 items respectively. The overall score range on was 84 (minimum) to 336 (maximum), however, the score range on psycho-performance skills is from 38 (minimum) to 152 (maximum), whereas, scoring range for perceived psychological support and psychocompetitiveness is 24 (minimum) to 96 (maximum) and 22 (minimum) to 88 (maximum) respectively with internal consistency for overall scale .94 determined by using Cronbach's alpha and .92, .90 and .87 reliability respectively for each sub-scale.…”