| he major purpose of this study was to develop and standardize a questionnaire to measure athletes' attitudes toward seeking sport psychology consultation. A 50-item questionnaire was developed and administered to 48 African-American (14 female and 34 male) and 177 Caucasian (79 female and 98 male) athletes ranging from 17 to 23 years of age at an NCAA Division I university. Principle components factor analyses were conducted to extract initial factors, followed by varimax orthogonal rotation. The results revealed three dimensions of athlete attitude toward sport psychology consultation representing 35% of the variance: stigma tolerance, confidence/recognition of need, and personal openness. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether attitudes toward seeking sport psychology consultation of athletes differed as a function of gender and race. A MANOVA and follow-up univariate analysis was performed on the factors to identify which ones maximized differences among race and gender groups. Factor 1, stigma tolerance, was significant for race, F(1, 210) = 19.36, p =.0001,... |
