Validation of the Lithuanian Version of the Coach-Created Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ-C)

Perceived Coach-Created Empowering and Disempowering Climate Effects on Athletes' Intentions to Use Doping: The Mediational Role of Self-Regulatory Efficacy and Attitudes towards Doping

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived coach-created empowering and disempowering motivational climate and doping likelihood among athletes and whether the attitudes towards doping and doping self-regulatory efficacy mediates these relationships.

METHODS

Athletes (N = 948; 50% male; mean age, 20.32, SD = 2.45) recruited from a variety of sports completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of coach-created motivational climate, attitudes towards doping, doping self-regulatory efficacy, and doping likelihood.

RESULTS

The study's results showed significant negative direct effects of a perceived empowering climate on doping likelihood (β = -0.50) and attitudes towards doping (β = -0.48), and a positive effect on self-regulatory efficacy (β = 0.48). On the contrary, a disempowering climate had positive direct effects on doping likelihood (β = 0.53) and attitudes towards doping (β = 0.45), and a negative effect on self-regulatory efficacy (β = -0.49). Significant indirect effects on doping likelihood via attitudes and self-regulatory efficacy were found.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that athletes who perceive a more empowering climate created by the coach are less likely to use banned substances due to their more negative attitudes towards doping and stronger belief in their ability to resist the temptation to use doping.

Predicting adolescents' continuation in club sports: A prospective cohort study of the importance of personal and contextual motivational factors in five sports in Denmark

PURPOSE

The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to investigate the influence of types of motivation, basic psychological needs satisfaction and of a coach-created motivational climate on continued participation in youth sports across types of sport, competitive levels, ages, and gender.

METHODS

Participants were 7110 adolescent (age 12-20 years) members of leisure time club organized in basketball, handball, football, badminton, and gymnastics in Denmark. Motivational regulation was measured with BRSQ-6, basic psychological needs satisfaction and frustration were measured with PNSS-S, and coach-created climate was measured with the EDMCQ-C. The participants' continuation or dropout was measured at the beginning of the following season with a short electronic questionnaire.

RESULTS

Intrinsic motivation, identified behavior regulation, experiences of competence, relatedness, and autonomy, as well as a coach-created empowering motivational climate, were associated with continuation both in the sport and in the club the following season across different sports, genders, age groups, and competitive levels. Introjected and external behavior regulation, frustrations with the need to experience competence, relatedness, and autonomy, as well as a disempowering coach-created climate, were associated with dropout.

CONCLUSION

In Danish youth sports, autonomous motivation, satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and an empowering coach-created motivational climate have a positive impact on the continuation of the sport and the club the following season. In contrast, controlled types of motivation, needs frustration, and a disempowering coach-created climate are associated with dropout. This is the case at both elite and recreational levels, for boys and girls, adolescents, and youth.

Perceived coach-created empowering and disempowering motivational climate and moral behaviour in sport: mediating role of moral disengagement

Based on Duda's (2013) hierarchical and multidimensional conceptualization, this research integrates motivational climate dimensions from Achievement Goal Theory and Self-Determination Theory to investigate the constructs of empowering/disempowering motivational climates. We aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived coach-created motivational climate and prosocial-antisocial behaviours and determine whether moral disengagement mediated this relationship. 423 athletes completed self-reported questionnaires. The results showed that empowering motivational climate had a positive direct association with prosocial behaviour towards opponents/teammates. Disempowering motivational climate had a positive direct relationship with antisocial behaviour towards opponents/teammates. Also, disempowering motivational climate was indirectly related to antisocial behaviour towards teammates, antisocial behaviour towards opponents and prosocial behaviour towards opponents via moral disengagement. These findings suggest that athletes' perception of coach-created empowering motivational climate is likely to enhance athletes' prosocial behaviours, whereas athletes' perception of coach-created disempowering motivational climate may result in their higher antisocial behaviours which is mediated by moral disengagement. The findings emphasize the role of perceived coach-created motivational climates in athletes' moral behaviours, provide useful information on the mediating role of moral disengagement in this relationship and suggest practical implications for sports coaches, sports psychologists and sport executives who aim to create a positive sports environment for athletes.

Factorial validity, predictive validity and measurement invariance of the Danish version of the coach-created Empowering Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ-C)

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to translate and validate a Danish version of the coach-created Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ-C), retest the factor structure and provide further investigation into the psychometric properties in terms of measurement invariance across gender, age and competitive level, reliability and predictive validity.

METHODS

The participants were 1719 male and 551 female Danish football players 12-20 years of age (M = 14.81) playing at recreational, medium and elite levels. Participants filled in EDMCQ-C as well as questionnaires measuring psychological needs (BPNESS) and behaviour regulation (BRSQ). Factor structure of the EDMCQ-C was tested using Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling. To test whether the factor structure differed across gender, age group and competitive level, an invariance analysis comparing configurational, metric and scalar models was conducted.

RESULTS

EDMCQ-C showed good psychometric properties and measurement invariance across age, gender and competitive level. Both dimensions of EDMCQ-C were associated to needs satisfaction and behaviour regulation in expected directions and had high internal consistency.

CONCLUSION

This study provides evidence for the reliability of the two dimensions of EDMCQ-C, their predictive validity and for measurement invariance across age, gender and competitive level and provides a Danish version of the EDMCQ with sound psychometric properties.

Measurement invariance of the empowering and disempowering motivational climate questionnaire-coach in youth sport

The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance (across five languages, two time points, and two experimental conditions) of the empowering and disempowering motivational climate questionnaire-coach (EDMCQ-C; Appleton et al., 2016) when completed by 9256 young sport participants (M age = 11.53 years, SD = 1.39 years; 13.5% female). Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the validity of a 2-factor (empowering and disempowering) model running a multiple group analysis without any equality constraint (configural invariance) followed by measurement invariance of factor loadings and thresholds (scalar invariance). Findings provided support for partial invariance across languages and scalar invariance across time and experimental groups. The factors were interpretable across the analyses, and items loaded as intended by theory except for item 15. This study provides further evidence regarding the psychometric properties of the EDMCQ-C and suggests this scale (minus item 15) can be used to provide meaningful latent mean comparisons (Marsh et al., 2013) of empowering and disempowering coach-created climates across athletes speaking the five targeted languages, across time, and across experimental groups.

Social Environmental Antecedents of Athletes' Emotions

The coach-created motivational climate influences variations in athletes’ motivation and emotional experiences. The present study aimed to examine social environmental antecedents of athletes’ emotions. Participants (N = 262, 52% female, M age = 22.75 ± 6.92) completed questionnaires assessing perceptions of coach-created motivational climates, goal orientations, motivation regulations, and emotions. The mediation effects of goal orientations (i.e., task/ego) and motivation regulations (i.e., autonomous/controlled) on the relationship between motivational climate (i.e., empowering/disempowering) and emotions (i.e., happiness, excitement, anxiety, dejection, and anger) were examined. Structural equation modeling revealed positive direct effects of perceptions of an empowering motivational climate on happiness. Indirect effects of empowering climate to happiness and excitement via task orientation and autonomous motivation emerged. Perceptions of a disempowering climate positively predicted anxiety, dejection, and anger via ego orientation and controlled motivation. Overall, the findings have implications for coach education as they highlight the importance of creating more empowering environments and avoiding or reducing social comparisons.