Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT)

Abstract

The Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) is a seminal psychometric instrument developed to quantify an athlete’s stable disposition toward experiencing anxiety in competitive environments. This construct is formally known as Competitive Trait Anxiety (CTA). Primarily developed by Rainer Martens, the SCAT is a cornerstone tool in Sport Psychology research and practice, used to identify individuals who chronically perceive competitive situations as threatening. The scale features 15 self-report items, scored on a 3-point frequency scale, yielding a single, comprehensive score for CTA.

Keywords

Sport Competition Anxiety Test, SCAT, Competitive Trait Anxiety, Anxiety, Sport Psychology, Psychometric Scale, Athlete Assessment, Trait Anxiety.

Authors

Rainer Martens, Diane L. Gill.

Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the SCAT is to provide a reliable quantification of the degree to which an athlete generally interprets competitive settings as personally threatening. This interpretation often manifests as feelings of tension, worry, and apprehension. By accurately measuring this stable personality characteristic, which is a form of trait anxiety, practitioners and researchers can more effectively anticipate an athlete’s emotional and physiological reactions during high-stakes competition, thereby facilitating targeted psychological interventions.

The SCAT’s utility extends beyond mere assessment; its creation was pivotal in advancing theoretical frameworks, notably contributing to the foundation of the multidimensional anxiety theory. Structurally, the scale incorporates five non-scoring items that address general attitudes toward sport. This design feature helps minimize potential response bias, ensuring that the resulting score is a clean measure exclusively focused on the core competitive anxiety construct.

Construct

The core construct measured by the SCAT is Competitive Trait Anxiety (CTA). CTA is defined as an enduring personality disposition that determines the frequency and intensity with which an athlete experiences competitive state anxiety, which is the immediate, transient feeling of nervousness. Unlike state anxiety, CTA represents a generalized, stable pattern of apprehension, worry, and nervousness specifically linked to the anticipation or experience of athletic competition.

The 10 scored items of the SCAT are designed to capture the multifaceted nature of CTA. these items encompass both cognitive anxiety (e.g., worry about performance failure or making mistakes) and somatic anxiety (e.g., physiological symptoms like a fast heartbeat or a queasy stomach) experienced immediately before or during competitive events. The reliable measurement of CTA is essential for understanding the psychological mechanisms that influence athletic performance, motivation, and attrition rates among competitors.

Validity

The SCAT has consistently demonstrated robust psychometric validity across a wide range of athletic populations and research contexts. Its content validity is supported by the direct relevance of its items, which reflect common pre-competition concerns and feelings reported by athletes. Furthermore, strong construct validity is evidenced by significant correlations with other established measures of general and sport-specific anxiety, such as the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS).

A key strength of the SCAT is its predictive validity. SCAT scores frequently correlate positively with measures of competitive state anxiety assessed immediately prior to an event, confirming its ability to forecast immediate emotional reactions. Research studies have successfully utilized SCAT scores to distinguish between different groups of athletes based on their observed performance outcomes and subjective levels of stress reported during intense competitive situations.

Reliability

The reliability of the SCAT is consistently high, confirming its suitability for measuring a stable psychological trait. Internal consistency, typically calculated using Cronbach’s alpha, generally falls within the acceptable to excellent range (commonly 0.70 to 0.85). This strong internal consistency across diverse athletic populations indicates that the 10 scored items accurately measure a single, cohesive underlying construct.

Additionally, the scale exhibits strong test-retest reliability over short intervals, which reinforces the conclusion that the SCAT assesses a stable, enduring characteristic of the athlete rather than temporary emotional fluctuations. This high degree of reliability is vital for researchers and practitioners conducting longitudinal studies aimed at tracking the long-term efficacy of training programs or psychological interventions on an athlete’s competitive disposition.

Factor Analysis

The original theoretical development and scoring method of the SCAT were predicated on the assumption of a unidimensional factor structure. This structure posits that Competitive Trait Anxiety is best represented by a single, global score. Subsequent factor analyses generally support this original design, confirming the presence of one strong, dominant factor encompassing the 10 core anxiety-related items.

Although later instruments, such as the Sport Anxiety Scale, introduced more refined, multidimensional subscales to separate cognitive and somatic components of competitive anxiety, the SCAT remains a highly efficient and parsimonious instrument. Its enduring value lies in providing a rapid assessment of the overall intensity of an athlete’s negative emotional response to competition, relying on the straightforward summation of the 10 scored items to yield the final CTA score.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Psychometric scale.

Format: 15 items scored on a 3-point Likert scale (1=Rarely, 2=Sometimes, 3=Often).

Language Available: English (Original), widely translated into numerous international languages.

Population Group: Athletes and individuals involved in competitive activities.

Age Group: Typically adolescents and adults (often used for ages 10 and above).

Population Details: Applicable across various sports, skill levels, and genders.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to indicate how often they generally experience the feelings described in the 15 statements when they compete. The final score is calculated by summing the responses of 10 anxiety-related items (with two items reverse-coded), resulting in a score range of 10 to 30. The five remaining items are included to minimize response bias but are not scored.

Keywords

Athlete performance, Psychological assessment, Stress measurement, Competitive environment, Sport psychology research, Trait measurement, Competitive stress, Trait Anxiety.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified for Rainer Martens or Diane L. Gill in the original context.

Affiliation Email addresses: Contact information typically associated with the University of Illinois (Rainer Martens) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Diane L. Gill).

Correspondence Address: Correspondence should generally be directed through the current publisher of the associated texts, Human Kinetics.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) was officially developed and published in the mid-1970s, with comprehensive documentation and standardization appearing in 1977. Further theoretical context and refinement were provided in the 1990 text, Competitive Anxiety in Sport. The scale is frequently utilized in non-commercial academic research settings, often without specific usage fees. However, formal permission may be required for large-scale administrative or commercial applications, typically granted by the original authors or their associated institutions and publishers.

Test Year: 1977.

The original PDF of this instrument can be downloaded here: http://www.mrgillpe.com/uploads/1/2/9/2/12922833/scat_form.pdf

Reference’s

• Martens, R. et al. (1990). Competitive Anxiety in Sport. Leeds: Human Kinetics.
• Martens, Rainer & Gill, Diane L. (1976). State Anxiety among Successful and Unsuccessful Competitors Who Differ in Competitive Trait Anxiety. Journal of Sport Psychology, 47, 698-708.
• Dunn, John G. H., Dunn, Janice Causgrove (2001). Relationships Among the Sport Competition Anxiety Test, the Sport Anxiety Scale, and the Collegiate Hockey Worry Scale. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 13(4), 411-429.

Items of the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Competing against others is socially enjoyable
2. Before I compete I feel uneasy
3. Before I compete I worry about not performing well
4. I am a good sportsman when I compete
5. When I compete‚ I worry about making mistakes
6. Before I compete I am calm*
7. Setting a goal is important when competing
8. Before I compete I get a queasy feeling in my stomach
9. Just before competing‚ I notice my heart beats faster than usual
10. I like to compete in games that demands a lot of physical energy
11. Before I compete I feel relaxed*
12. Before I compete I am nervous
13. Team sports are more exciting than individual sports
14. I get nervous wanting to start the game
15. Before I compete I usually get uptight

• 1-Rarely‚ 2-Sometimes‚ 3-Often

• *. Reverse coded

• Questions 1‚ 4‚ 7‚ 10 and 13 score zero