CERSPS – Children's Experience of Relational Sport Participation Scale

ABSTRACT This paper describes the development of a psychometric instrument to measure children's experience of relational participation in voluntary sports organizations. The method followed psychometric principles of measurement construction. The construction followed six steps: (1) Defining children's experiences of participation in sports, (2) Construction of items, (3) Determination of sample size, (4) Examination of data quality, including verification of factorability, (5) Determination of the number of factors, and (6) Validation of the scale. Based on previous research, children's experience of participation in sports was defined as composed of relations between the children and their trainer and also between children and their peers. Forty‐four constructed items based on the relational concept underwent two tests with 162 sporting children (10 + 152) aged between 13 and 17. Reliability testing was conducted using item analysis with Cronbach's alpha, factor analysis, and inter‐item analysis. Seven items remained in two confirmed dimensions: participation between children and trainers (CPIT) and participation between peers (CPIP). Additional validity analysis using linear regressions showed that the CERSPS instrument, in part, could explain children's satisfaction with how their sport is organized.