| The purposes of this dissertation were to assess and analyze the sources and levels of self-confidence of senior adult (aging) athletes. Secondly, the author of this dissertation also examined the influence of gender and sport participation levels (senior adults, college, high school) within a single sport on the perceived importance of various sources of sport-confidence. This dissertation was conducted utilizing the sources of sport-confidence framework (Vealey, Hayashi, Garner-Holman, & Giacobbi, 1998), which included the nine-factored sources of the sport-confidence model, and athletic characteristics and organizational cultures as influences of sources of confidence in one's sport. The results did not replicate the nine sources of sport-confidence contained in the factor structure of the Sources of Sport-Confidence Questionnaire (SSCQ) with samples of senior adult, college and high school athletes. The results revealed that a modified six-factor model (SSCQ-M) was needed to explain the sources of sport-confidence, as well as its factor structure cross-sectionally. The regression analysis indicated that physical/mental preparation was the best predictor of sport-confidence of senior adult, college, and high school athletes. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variances, and Tukey's Post-Hoc analysis, also found that the perceived importance of various sources of sport-confidence differed between and within gender, and between participation levels in the sport of track and field. The six-factor model appeared to be stable across gender and sport-participation levels and supported Atchley's (1989) continuity theory of aging. |
