Preliminary Empirical Validation of the "Basic Needs Satisfaction in Sport Scale" With a Sample of Spanish Athletes

Cristina De Francisco; Francisco J Parra; Constantino Arce; M D Pilar Vílchez

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01057

Preliminary Empirical Validation of the "Basic Needs Satisfaction in Sport Scale" With a Sample of Spanish Athletes

Front Psychol. 2018 Jun 27:9:1057. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01057. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Cristina De Francisco¹, Francisco J Parra¹, Constantino Arce², M D Pilar Vílchez¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, Catholic University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.
² Department of Social Psychology, Basic and Methodology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Abstract

The theory of self-determination establishes the existence of three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relationship). If these needs are satisfied, optimal personal well-being will be achieved. The Basic Needs Satisfactions in Sport Scale (BNSSS) is a measurement developed to evaluate these needs within the sporting context. The BNSSS measures the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs through 20 items distributed in five dimensions: autonomy-choice, autonomy-volition, autonomy-perceived locus of internal causality, competence, and relatedness. The purpose of this study is to validate a Spanish version of the BNSSS. The sample were 441 team athletes with a mean age of 17.46 (SD = 3.59), which 46.5% were men and the remaining percentage (53.5%) were women. After a standardised data collection, confirmatory factor analysis and invariance analyses were performed, as well as composite reliability. The obtained version showed a good overall fit of the model and values of composite reliability higher to 0.70. Therefore, a useful tool for assessing basic psychological needs in team sports was obtained.

Keywords: Spanish; basic psychological needs; reliability; sport; validity.