Abstract

Sport competition can be a major source of stress among youth sport athletes. Knowledge of competitive state anxiety may be beneficial for both sport performance and development of young athletes. The Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), and more recently the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2R) are often used instruments to measure competitive state anxiety. Indeed, there is evidence suggesting excellent psychometric properties of these instruments in their original as well culturally adapted forms. Given the potential benefits of this instrument in understanding youth athletes’ affective states, CSAI-2R was translated into Malaysian language and has been a precursor to several studies. However, given no prior assessment of the psychometric properties of the translated version, the present study sought to examine the factorial validity and reliability of the Malaysian version of the CSAI-2R. The questionnaire was administered to 236 young Taekwondo athletes. Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), three models were tested, a 1-factor model, a 2-factor model and a 3-factor model. The 3-factor model consisting of self-confidence, somatic anxiety and cognitive anxiety factors was expected to yield the best model fit. As expected, CFA results revealed close model fit of the 3-factor model when compared to two others tested models (χ² = 170.197, df = 116, p <0.05; RMR = 0.06; GFI = 0.0.92; RMSEA = 0.05, ECVI = 1.04, AIC = 244.19). Furthermore, significant unstandardised regression weights (<0.05) for all of the path loadings were obtained indicating good convergent validity of the subscales. The results also revealed an acceptable reliability for the subscales (α = 0.65 for somatic anxiety, 0.77 for cognitive anxiety and 0.76 for self-confidence subscales). Overall, the findings support the factorial validity and reliability of the Malaysian version of CSAI-2R. However, future studies with larger sample are needed to confirm if the findings are sample specific or more general.