The Development and Validation of the Golf Self-Efficacy Scale - Article Example

Methods The methodology consisted of a participant group of 220 golfers who were playing in the Dupont World Amateur Tournament in Myrtle Beach. The participants were from South Carolina and had an average age of 44.46. Most of the participants were Caucasian (n=203). The majority of the participants had an average of 14.76 years of education, with their experience playing golf ranging from 2 to 50 years. Most played at least once a week at a rate of 31%, while 27% played twice a week and 4.5% played every day.

It was reported by participants that they played for less than an hour when they did play by 39%. Of the participants, 73% belonged to a private golf club, while 23.7% reported that they had taken lessons for golf at some point in the previous six months (Hayslip, Rabb, Baszewski, & Petri, 2010). In order to measure self-efficacy in golf a 12 item measure called the Golf Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) was created to target skill sand behaviors that are “associated with being a successful golfer” (Hayslip, Rabb, Baszewski, & Petri, 2010, p. 430. .

d that “A single factor explained 62.33% of the common variance among items (Eigenvalue = 5.08); Cronbach's alpha for this single factor score was .87. These findings suggest that the GSES is a uni-dimensional and reliable measure of golfers' perceived efficacy” (p. 433). In relationship to the concurrent validity, GSES was not related to the number of years played nor how often they practiced, but was related to how much time was spent practicing when they practiced. In relationship to the concurrent validity, golf self-efficacy was related to general and social self-efficacy and higher scores on the SAS were related to lower scores on the GSES.

In assessing the discriminate validity, it became clear that level of skill did reliably impact the overall GSES scores with those most skilled having higher scores and those less skilled having lower scores. Predictive validity seemed to be related to predicting rounds 1,3, and 4, but had no predictive value for round 2 (Hayslip, Rabb, Baszewski, & Petri, 2010). Discussion The findings suggest that the GSES can be used as a predictive measure in relationship to playing golf. Efforts to change self-efficacy in relationship to playing golf can be beneficial in promoting a better average play, especially to older players who might not be approaching the game through a need to change self-efficacy as a pre-game mindset.

Older players approach the game with the concept that they have less available physical resources and thus show lower levels of confidence. The findings suggest that “greater golf self-efficacy predicts better performance during tournament play” (Hayslip, Rabb, Baszewski, & Petri, 2010, p. 435). Reflection This article was attractive because it discussed an interesting aspect of sports psychology in that