ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sports Coaching: Performance and Development
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1615784
Investigating validity evidence for Coach Precompetitive Communication Questionnaire-Preference (CPCQ-P) for measurement of collegiate athlete preferences of coach speech content and delivery
Provisionally accepted
- 1Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
- 2Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, United States
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Previous measures of athlete perception of pregame speech have centered around a two-dimensional structure of speech content (i.e., tactical and emotional), although psychometric evidence is limited. The Coach Precompetitive Communication Questionnaire – Preference (CPCQ-P) was developed to extend the two-dimensional model of pregame speech content by (a) including speech delivery and (b) allowing a general pregame speech factor. The purpose of this study was to investigate initial validity evidence for responses to the CPCQ-P under an exploratory bifactor approach at the athlete level. Participants were athletes (N = 264) at level-1 nested within NCAA varsity level teams (G = 36) at level-2. Participant survey responses were analyzed using an exploratory bifactor analysis with a general factor (i.e., pregame speech) and three grouping factors (i.e., tactical content, emotional content, delivery). A four-factor model with three grouping factors and a general factor exhibited approximate to close fit to the data. Review of factor loadings provided initial evidence of validity for the internal structure of responses to the CPCQ-P. This study expands the existing psychometric understanding of pregame speech within the collegiate sport context.
Keywords: Measurement, competition readiness, Communication, coaching, Athlete performance
Received: 21 Apr 2025; Accepted: 27 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zimmerman, Myers and Vealey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Corinne T. Zimmerman, Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
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