479
Smith, Smoll, and Grossbard are with the Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington 98195-1525, and Cumming is now with the School for Health, University of Bath, Bath,
England, BA2 7AY.
Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2006, 28, 479-501
© 2006 Human Kinetics, Inc.
Measurement of Multidimensional Sport
Performance Anxiety in Children and
Adults: The Sport Anxiety Scale-2
Ronald E. Smith, Frank L. Smoll, Sean P. Cumming,
and Joel R. Grossbard
University of Washington
This article describes the development and validation of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2
(SAS-2), a multidimensional measure of cognitive and somatic trait anxiety in
sport performance settings. Scale development was stimulated by findings that
the 3-factor structure of the original Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS; Smith, Smoll, &
Schutz, 1990) could not be reproduced in child samples and that several items on
the scale produced conflicting factor loadings in adult samples. Alternative items
having readability levels of grade 4 or below were therefore written to create a
new version suitable for both children and adults. Exploratory and confirmatory
factor analyses replicated the original SAS factor structure at all age levels, yielding
separate 5-item subscales Somatic Anxiety, Worry, and Concentration Disruption
in samples as young as 9 to 10 years of age. The SAS-2 has stronger factorial
validity than the original scale did, and construct validity research indicates that
scores relate to other psychological measures as expected. The scale reliably pre-
dicts precompetition state anxiety scores and proved sensitive to anxiety-reduction
interventions directed at youth sport coaches and parents.
Key Words: sport anxiety measurement, reliability, factorial and construct
validity
The study of anxiety, its antecedents, its relations with other psychological
variables, and its consequences has a long history of theoretical and empirical
attention within sport psychology. Cognition and arousal are widely considered to
be different components of the anxiety response, and a distinction has long been
made between cognitive and somatic anxiety (Burton, 1998; Davidson & Schwartz,
1976; Deffenbacher, 1977; Smith, Smoll, & Wiechman, 1998). Moreover, although
they interact with one another, cognitive and somatic anxiety can at times be
elicited by different antecedents (Burton, 1998; Morris & Engle, 1981; Morris &
Liebert, 1973), and they can be differentially related to performance, depending