LINGUISTIC VALIDATION OF: ATHLETIC IDENTITY MEASUREMENT SCALE (AIMS-PLUS) IN PAKISTANI ATHLETES

Abstract

The variety of the sports athletes worldwide possess a great need for cross-culturally validated research instruments or scales. In the past few years, the AIMS-Plus (Cieslak, 2004) a shorter edition was translated, validated and adapted in different languages, cultures and countries, therefore, we aimed to translate it in Urdu language for Pakistani Athletes. Initially AIMS consisted of 15 items but a recent and most commonly used updated version in this study, AIMS-Plus contained 10 items. This scale measures athlete's social, cognitive and affective/ emotional sports-related identities assessing their opinions, beliefs and routine life. It also evaluates their attachment and association to sports. A high Reliability coefficients was found .82. Each item was assessed on a seven-point Likert scale. AIMS-Plus was utilized in several studies, investigating sports athletes from diverse populations. The present study was validated on Pakistani Athletes (N = 220) with an age range of M=24.35, SD=5.6. A Factor analysis through Structural Equation Modelling SEM-AMOS, was carried out using the confirmatory approach and validated the factorial structure. Results revealed strong psychometric properties of AIMS-Plus which are in line with those of the initial validation studies. These findings imply that AIMS-plus appears to be an acceptable psychometric tool and a good scale to be investigated in athlete’s identity-related researches and intervention.