Perceived Belonging in Sport Scale: Construct and Concurrent Validity

Feeling connected with significant others has long been recognized as a central aspect of human motivation (e.g., Atkinson, 1964; Bowlby, 1969; Maslow, 1954; Rogers, 1951). However, the construct of belonging has received little attention from sport motivation researchers apart from a description of social motives for involvement and social sources of enjoyment (e.g., McCullagh, Matzkanin, Shaw, & Maldanado, 1993; Scanlan & Simons, 1992). Recently, Allen (2003) proposed a model of social motivation in sport in which belonging was conceptualized as the energizer of goal directed behavior in social contexts such as sport. This line of research is limited by the lack of a sport-specific measure of perceived belonging with demonstrated psychometrics. Allen began to address this issue by modifying a measure of perceived belonging in school (Goodenow, 1993) for the sport setting. However, Allen used only 11 items from the original scale, found problems with several items, and examined concurrent validity with only one variable—sport interest. Therefore the purpose of this study was to further develop and examine the construct and concurrent validity of the Perceived Belonging in Sport Scale. Participants (N = 259 university students, ages 18–37 years, M = 20.31, SD = 2.10) completed a questionnaire assessing perceptions of sport belonging (20 items), satisfaction, cohesion, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and social self-esteem. Confirmatory factor analysis provided support for a shortened version of the PBSS. Perceived belonging was also related to satisfaction, cohesion, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and social self-esteem in a theoretically consistent manner, supporting the concurrent validity of the scale.