Examining gender invariance of the Sport-Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-2 in intercollegiate athletes

Abstract

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present study is to examine gender measurement invariance of the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale – 2 (Sport-MPS-2; Gotwals & Dunn, 2009) with intercollegiate athletes. MethodsCanadian intercollegiate athletes (N = 531, women = 47.4%) completed the Sport-MPS-2. ResultsAnalysis of men, women, and combined samples using both independent clusters confirmatory factor analysis (ICM-CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) procedures found supportive evidence for the hypothesized 6-factor lower order model. ESEM analysis fit the data slightly better than ICM-CFA. Progressive gender invariance analysis using ESEM found evidence for configural, weak, and strong, but not strict invariance. ConclusionsThe gender invariance results suggest internal structure of the Sport-MPS2 can be confirmed as invariant across gender, and individuals who have the same score on perfectionism would obtain the same score on the instrument independently of their gender. The lack of strict invariance may imply differences in precision that warrant caution in interpretation in certain situations, but support for gender comparisons using the Sport-MPS-2 in this population is largely supported.