Re-evaluation of the factorial validity of the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2

Anxiety is one of the most frequently researched constructs in the field of sport and exercise psychology. Although there are at least 22 published scales available to measure anxiety (see Ostrow, 1996), the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2: Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990) has generally been the scale of choice since its development. Given its prominence as a research tool, indeed it was described by Woodman and Hardy (2003, p.453) as having 'near sine qua non status', the CSAI-2 has naturally been the subject of considerable scrutiny of its psychometric characteristics. Several studies have now been published which have raised concerns about the factorial validity of the CSAI-2 in its English (Cox, Martens, & Russell, 2003; Lane, Sewell, Terry, Bartram, & Nesti, 1999), Greek (Tsorbatzoudis, Varkoukis, Kaissidis-Rodafinos, & Grouios, 1998), and Swedish (Lundqvist & Hassmen, in press) versions. Collectively, reevaluations of its psychometric properties have raised serious doubts about the validity of the CSAI-2 in its original form and by implication have cast a shadow over the findings of dozens of studies that have used it to measure anxiety. To address this situation, Cox et al. (2003) conducted a two-stage process using calibration and validation samples to arrive at an improved measure. Having deleted problematic items in the original CSAI-2 and having subsequently supported the factorial validity of a revised version of the measure, termed the CSAI-2R, they recommended that researchers and clinicians should in future use the revised measure in preference to the original. The purpose of the present study was to re-evaluate the factorial validity of the CSAI-2R, as recommended by Cox and colleagues. Considering the potential for the revised measure to become the new scale of choice for researchers in the sport and exercise domains, this is judged to be an important contribution to the anxiety literature