How Should We Measure Psychological Resilience in Sport Performers?

• Published in: Measurement in physical education and exercise science Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 264 - 280
• Main Authors: Sarkar, Mustafa, Fletcher, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Routledge 01.10.2013; Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Adjustment (to Environment); adversity; Athletes; Influences; Literature Reviews; Measurement Techniques; positive adaptation; protective factors; Psychological Studies; Psychologists; psychometric; Psychometrics; Quantitative psychology; Resilience (Psychology); Risk assessment; Sport Psychology; Sports psychology
• ISSN: 1091-367X; 1532-7841
• DOI: 10.1080/1091367X.2013.805141

Psychological resilience is important in sport because athletes must constantly withstand a wide range of pressures to attain and sustain high performance. To advance psychologists' understanding of this area, there exists an urgent need to develop a sport-specific measure of resilience. The purpose of this article is to review psychometric issues in resilience research and to discuss the implications for sport psychology. Drawing on the wider general psychology literature to inform the discussion, the narrative is divided into three main sections relating to resilience and its assessment: adversity, positive adaptation, and protective factors. The first section reviews the different ways that adversity has been measured and considers the potential problems of using items with varying degrees of controllability and risk. The second section discusses the different approaches to assessing positive adaptation and examines the issue of circularity pervasive in resilience research. The final section explores the various issues related to the assessment of protective factors drawing directly from current measures of resilience in other psychology sub-disciplines. The commentary concludes with key recommendations for sport psychology researchers seeking to develop a measure of psychological resilience in athletes.