Preliminary Validity and Reliability of the Persian Version of The Situational Motivation Scale for use in Academic Sport Contexts

Abstract

Motivation is one of the most important psychological factors in recognising human behavior in different settings. The purpose of this study was to analyse the reliability and validity of the Persian version of the Situational Motivation Scale (P-SIMS) developed by Guay et al., (2000) in academic sport settings. A total of 231 undergraduate students, 113 males (51.6%) and 106 females (48.4%), participated in the study. The P-SIMS consists of 16 items and four subscales: intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation. Cronbach's alpha coefficient, interclass correlation coefficient (ICC), confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the internal consistency of subscales, temporal reliability, construct validity of the scale respectively. The Standardized estimate of 16 questions shows that the CFI, GFI, and NNFI indexes are above 0.90 and the RMSEA index is below 0.08, indicating the acceptability of the fit indexes. Also, the results of the calculations performed to estimate the reliability of the scale factors show that the value of the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) are good enough and considering that the internal consistency coefficients and temporal reliability of the components of the list are reasonable and appropriate, the reliability of the scale is confirmed. The results showed that P-SIMS has relatively acceptable construct validity and acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The results of this study support the preliminary validity and reliability of the P-SIMS for use in academic sport contexts.