Development of Brief Assessment Packages of Psychosocial Constructs Related to Doping

Summary

The project aimed to address the lack of succinct, practical instruments for evaluating anti-doping education. The primary objective was to create practical questionnaires that ADOs can use to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their education programs on key psychosocial variables related to doping. The resulting questionnaires provide a standardized method for assessing diverse factors such as morality, motivation, perceived benefits, and deterrents relevant to doping.

You can find and download the questionnaires below in the related documents section.

Methodology

The project was executed in four phases:

• Phase 1 - Construct Selection: The research team reviewed literature to identify 27 psychosocial constructs perceived as malleable through education.

• Phase 2 - Expert Consultation: An abbreviated Delphi poll was conducted with 32 anti-doping experts (researchers and ADO representatives) to rank and rate the importance of these constructs.

• Phase 3 - Data Collection: Questionnaires were distributed to athletes and ASP in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, resulting in 307 valid adult athlete responses and 296 ASP responses.

• Phase 4 - Tool Creation: Researchers used the OASIS package in the statistical programme R to select the best items for each construct based on internal consistency, validity, and content coverage.

Results

The project produced validated short-form assessment packages for two target groups:

• Adult Athletes: A 24-item questionnaire was finalized, assessing 11 distinct psychosocial constructs.

• Athlete Support Personnel (ASP):  A 28-item questionnaire was created to measure 13 relevant constructs.

• Adolescent Athletes: Due to the insufficient sample size (n=31), the required psychometric analyses could not be performed. Consequently, a validated assessment tool for this critical population was not developed, though a preliminary questionnaire is available in the project's appendix.

For both finalized questionnaires, longer versions with a minimum of three items per construct were also developed. These are intended for researchers who require more items to calculate specific reliability coefficients, such as omega.

Significance for Clean Sport

The questionnaires enable ADOs to conduct more sophisticated, evidence-based evaluations of their programs, moving beyond knowledge checks to measure tangible changes in athletes' and ASPs' attitudes, beliefs, and morals regarding doping.

The identified constructs, such as an ASP's efficacy to confront an athlete about doping, can directly inform and enhance the content of future education programs, targeting the most critical psychosocial factors that influence clean sport behavior.

The tools are flexible and can be administered entirely or in part, depending on an ADO's specific evaluation needs. Their adoption promotes a standardized approach to assessing education effectiveness, allowing for better reporting and cross-national comparisons.

The report concludes by recommending future research to conduct stronger tests of the questionnaires' validity, assess their utility across different cultures and languages, and address the low internal reliability found for the moral disengagement scale. Most importantly, it highlights the urgent need to collect sufficient data to create a validated brief tool for adolescent athletes.

Related Publications

- Development of brief assessment packages of psychosocial constructs related to doping