Assessment of Psychological Zone of Optimal Performance among Professional Athletes: EGA and Item Response Theory Analysis

Bing Li, Cody Ding (), Huiying Shi, Fenghui Fan and Liya Guo
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Bing Li: Virtual Laboratory of Sports and Health, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China
Cody Ding: Education Sciences and Professional Programs, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63121, USA
Huiying Shi: Virtual Laboratory of Sports and Health, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China
Fenghui Fan: Virtual Laboratory of Sports and Health, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China
Liya Guo: Virtual Laboratory of Sports and Health, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: Sport psychology researchers have been investigating athletes’ ideal performance levels for a long time. Key areas of investigation in this field involve determining if there is an optimal performance zone and how to evaluate it. To advance this line of research, the current research aimed to create a short but reliable tool for assessing the psychological state of professional athletes during their peak performance, known as the “optimal performance zone”. After developing an initial item pool, the final 10-item scale was retained and validated using factor analytical models and item response theory analysis based on 357 Chinese professional athletes in 12 different sports types. The average age of the participants was 19.4 years ( SD = 3.67), and 54% were male. Experience in the sport ranged from 2 to 15 years, with a mean of 5.82 years ( SD = 3.65). The brief scale was found to form a one-factor solution, with factor loading ranging from 0.55 to 0.77. The IRT-based marginal reliability of this scale is 0.90, and the scale showed predictive validity in predicting an athlete’s professional ranking (χ 2 (3) = 8.34, p = 0.039). The brief scale can quickly screen for a psychological zone of optimal performance among professional athletes, and implications are discussed.

Keywords: optimal performance; psychological zone; professional athletes; exploratory graph analysis; IRT; predictive validity; DIF analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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