Exploring the factorial structure of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2: invariance across language, gender, age and type of sport.

BACKGROUND This study evaluates the metric and scalar invariance of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2), which is considered one of the best sport performance anxiety assessment tools for child and adolescent athletes, across four sampling variables: language, gender, age and type of sport. METHOD The participants were 842 athletes (Mage = 11.73, SD = 2.20) from Spain, Belgium and Portugal, each of whom completed the language-adapted version of the SAS-2. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the invariance of the measurement model, and the relative importance of the sampling variables was assessed using a multiple indicator multiple causes model (MIMIC). RESULTS The results revealed metric and scalar invariance across all sampling variables and null to modest effects of gender, age and type of sport as covariates for the factors of the SAS-2. However, there was a marked effect (ß = -.56) of language on worry, which reflected lower scores on this factor for the Flemish sample. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study provide evidence of the invariance of the SAS-2 across samples, thereby endorsing the reliability of its factorial structure for future multi-group research.