Development of Presence Motives Scale in Presence-Absence Conflict for Practice

When athletes are conflicted about whether to be present at or absent from practice, it is necessary to consider the diverse motives behind their behavior. In this study, we developed the Presence Motives Scale in Presence-Absence Conflict for Practice (PMSCP) to comprehensively evaluate why athletes choose to be present at practice. Additionally, this study was intended to categorize the different types of attendance motives among athletes based on the PMSCP. We surveyed 282 college athletes to assess factor structure, reliability, and validity of the PMSCP. Following exploratory factor analysis, we identified 19 items distributed across five factors: dedication to athletic activities, relationships with the coach, team attendance pressure, relationships with teammates, and relationships with family and close ones. Moreover, the internal consistency of each sub-factor was satisfactory. The assessment of retest reliability showed an acceptable intraclass correlation coefficient. Furthermore, regarding comorbid validity, when we conducted correlation analyses with the Sport Commitment, Perfectionism, and Burnout Scales, we observed significant correlations with all the PMSCP subscale scores. Our cluster analysis based on the PMSCP subscale revealed four distinct clusters: 1) pressure and non-engaged motives type, 2) autonomous motives type, 3) intra-team relationship-oriented motives type, and 4) heteronomous motives type.