Our goal for this study was to adapt the Mindfulness Inventory for Sport (MIS) into written Arabic that would be easily understood in North African countries (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco or TAM). Assessment tools in Arabic, such as this MIS-TAM version, are rare but essential for evaluating the effectiveness of sport psychology interventions. We adopted a committee approach to obtain a first Arabic version of the MIS. We asked a team of translators to adapt the items to the level of understanding of 13-year-old athletes by selecting words common to the culture of the three countries. The validation process underwent three phases. In Study 1, we tested MIS-TAM for clarity and deemed it acceptable. In Study 2 we tested the construct validity of two different models with confirmatory factorial analyses. These analyses confirmed that the structure of the 15-item MIS-TAM was psychometrically similar to the original version; it had a first order model encompassing three dimensions: Awareness, Non-Judgement and Refocusing. Analyses also found the internal consistency of the MIS-TAM acceptable. We assessed convergent validity in Study 3 with the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, but no correlations between the two instruments were significant. In conclusion, the MIS-TAM has acceptable psychometric properties, though further work is needed regarding convergent validity. The rigorous work of translation and adaptation focused on shared linguistics in three target countries, and this questionnaire will also prove useful in other countries where Arabic is the main language.
Keywords: athlete psychological preparation; psychometric development; sport psychology; translations of tests.