Initial validation of the coach-created Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ-C)

This article employs Duda's (2013) hierarchical conceptualization of the coach-created motivational climate to inform the validation of a questionnaire (Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire-Coach; EDMCQ-C) that assesses junior athletes' perceptions of the social environmental dimensions proposed by achievement goal theory and self-determination theory. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were initially employed to reduce the number of items required to measure the targeted climate dimensions. A series of competing models were then tested to determine the best representation of the questionnaire's factor structure. The findings revealed that exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) provided a better fit of the data to the hypothesised model than CFA solutions. Specifically, the bi-factor ESEM provided the best fit, although parameter estimates suggest that none of the ESEM solutions replicated the underlying theoretical model of the motivational climate proposed by Duda (2013). The evidence from this study suggests that the EDMCQ-C is a promising, parsimonious questionnaire to assess empowering and disempowering facets of the motivational climate albeit the development of the questionnaire remains a work in progress. Crown Copyright © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Over the past 30 years, a large body of research in sport psychology has confirmed that athletes' performance, motivation, well-being and continued participation in sport is influenced by a range of coach-related factors. Research has demonstrated that athletes' experiences in sport are predicted by the characteristics of the relationship with their coach (see Jowett & Poczwaedoski, 2007), their coach's leadership style (see Riemer, 2007), coaching efficacy (see Myers, Vargas-Tonsing, & Feltz, 2005), and coach's behaviours including the incidence of positive reinforcement and punishments (see Smith & Smoll, 2007). There is also substantial evidence that the social psychological environment or ‘motivational climate’ created by the coach is relevant to variability in athletes' cognitions, affect and behaviours. The majority of research focused on the coach-created social psychological environment has and Rehabilitation Sciences,