Developing the sport social support scale : examining the discrepancy between perceptions of parents, coaches and athletes

There has been a number of social support scales previously used which measure either the quality or quantity of social support in specific settings, for example school or family. However when assessing social support, the key element to consider is the perceptions of the “giver” and “receiver” of the support because if they are incongruent, disagreements can arise. Therefore it is essential that a scale be constructed to incorporate both the giver and receiver’s perceptions. As a result, this paper reports on the development of the Sport Social Support Scale (SSSS) which taps athletes’, parents’ and coaches’ perceptions relating to various aspects of social support, including the amount and type of emotional, tangible, informational and network support they perceive to receive or give. The construction of the SSSS was based on a comprehensive literature search on social support within both the more traditional psychological fields as well as sport and exercise psychology domains. Participants from a selective sports high school in Australia completed the SSSS along with their parents and coaches as an initial validation of the questionnaire and modification where deemed suitable. It is foreseen that this scale will be a strong tool in future research for assessing quantitative triangulation of data in a sport setting as coach, parent and athlete perceptions are all included