The compassionate coach scale as perceived by the athlete: development and initial validation in Portuguese athletes

Abstract

The current study aimed to develop and validate a measure to assess an athlete’s perception of a coach’s compassionate qualities – The Compassionate Coach Scale as Perceived by the Athlete (CCS-PA). Two independent samples were used to validate this scale. Participants were Portuguese adult athletes of different sports, who completed self-reported measures on an online survey. The first sample (calibration sample; N = 181) was used to examine the structure of the scale. The second sample (validation sample; N = 247) was used to ascertain its structure and explore various aspects of its validity. A confirmatory factor analysis was employed to test the adequacy of the proposed hierarchical structure of the scale. One higher-order factor (perceived coach’s compassionate qualities) with two lower-order factors (compassionate engagement and compassionate actions) revealed an adequate fit to the data. The scale showed high internal consistency, convergent, discriminant and external validity and it was invariant across gender. CCS-PA revealed to be a reliable measure that allows the assessment of the athlete’s perception of the coach’s qualities of engagement with their distress/suffering and the coach’s abilities to take effective actions to prevent and alleviate it. This scale seems to be an important contribution for practical and research fields of clinical sport psychology, providing important help to identify features of the coaches that could be changed. Also, this study can be a potential contribution to alert coaches about the impact of their attitudes and behaviours on athlete’ mental health.