The Sport Mental Training Questionnaire: Development and Validation

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Research in sports psychology has revealed that mental training is essential in the development of successful athletes. This project, comprised of five studies (a total of N = 2015) resulted in a novel approach towards the measurement of mental skills in sport. In Study 1 (N = 797) and Study 2 (N = 405) we used principal component analysis to identify and confirm the structure of a wide range of identified sport mental skills. Study 3 (N = 429) and Study 5 (N = 330) confirmed factorial structure of Polish and English versions. Study 4 documented how both versions of the scale were developed, and how these two versions converge supporting their cross-cultural validity. The final version contains 20 items grouped into 5 subscales (foundational skills, performance skills, interpersonal skills, self-talk and mental imagery). The Sport Mental Training Questionnaire is a reliable and valid brief questionnaire that will facilitate psychological evaluation of mental preparation among athletes.