Theses and Dissertations Collection

Much of an athlete’s global well-being may be derived from their sport well-being (WB) and vice versa (Foster & Chow, 2019; Lundqvist, 2011). While WB measures have been explored in non-sport contexts (e.g., WHO., 2021), researchers and practitioners in sport psychology have sought to explore the WB of competitive athletes. Inconsistencies in the literature indicate a lack of understanding of sport WB and concerns with sport specific WB assessments lacking psychometric rigor are evident (Giles et al., 2020). Holistic perspectives of sport WB have been proposed to focus on the whole person of an athlete and interactions they may have in their environment (Lundqvist, 2021). Therefore, three separate but related, studies were conducted to develop and validate two instruments including (a) the Well-Being in Sport Questionnaire (WBSQ) to identify dimensions that address outcome-related sport WB and (b) the Sport Well-Being Profile (SWBP) to identify ways to enhance sport WB. The WBSQ and SWBP focus on holistic and integrated aspects that are perceived to be important for well-being in athletic contexts. Specifically, the WBSQ and SWBP were developed using a series of steps following contemporary instrument development recommendations from Boateng et al. (2018) including: (a) formulation of new items, (b) use of an expert panel to refine the items and examine content validity, (c) conducting an exploratory factor analysis study (EFA) to identify the best items and dimensions; (c) conducting exploratory structural covariance modeling (ESCM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA); and (d) examine the construct and concurrent validity to examine the relationships with correlate variables. In addition, clusters were created using cluster analysis to compare across related psychosocial variables (i.e., stress, global WB, motivation). Practitioners aspire to help athletes achieve peak sport performance, but even more importantly, help performers experience positive well-being related outcomes (Didymus & Fletcher, 2017). With the use of the WBSQ and SWBP together, coaches, athletes, and practitioners should be better able to identify a comprehensive picture of their athletes’ well-being, how to maximize our understanding of its complexities, and strategize to enhance sport WB.