The Development of the Performance Inventory

The Performance Inventory (PI) is an 80-item questionnaire designed to assess the factors contributing to performance anxiety as well as coping strategies for its management. This study evaluated factor analyses of these questions. The participants were students in psychology classes ( n = 164), members of the Division III tennis team (male n = 16, female n = 6), female lacrosse team ( n = 26), female softball team ( n = 24), and male football team ( n = 25). In total, there were 261 participants: 157 females, 98 males, and six nonbinary participants. With confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the adequacy of a model that considered the 80 observed variables to depend on 14 factors or unobserved variables was estimated. This solution was compared to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) based confirmatory factor analysis (ECFA) that resulted in 12 factors. The CFA and ECFA solutions were statistically indistinguishable, with goodness-of-fit statistics slightly favoring the CFA solution; factor patterns for both were stable across retesting, gender, ethnicity and status as a psychology student or student-athlete. Considering goodness-of-fit statistics, factor loadings, and precedent with CFA research and questionnaires that measure forms of anxiety, the CFA solution may be of greater benefit in application.