Carron, A. V., Shapcott, K. M., & Burke, S. M.
The University of Western Ontario
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Within the sport psychology domain, attribution theory is considered to be one of the most influential contemporary avenues for the study of athlete motivation (Biddle, Hanrahan, & Sellars, 2001). A basic tenet of attribution theory is that individuals have an inherent need to understand why an event occurred with a view to increasing control over future events. As would be expected, judgements pertaining to the why of an objective or subjective success or failure can vary widely. However, theoreticians such as Weiner (1985, 1986) have suggested that the explanations advanced in achievement situations generally are of four types: personal ability, personal effort, opponent ability, and luck. Further, Weiner (1985, 1986) proposed that these explanations can be classified along three dimensions: locus of causality (extent to which causes are seen as either residing within or outside); stability (extent to which causes are seen as either stable or variable over time); and, controllability (extent to which causes are seen as regulated by either the focal target or others).
Considerable research has demonstrated that the types of attributions endorsed can influence affect, cognitions, and behaviour (Biddle et al., 2001). For example following a failure, an attribution to low effort is associated with dissatisfaction and shame, and an attribution to stable and internal causes is associated with both lowered efficacy beliefs and reduced adherence behaviour (Biddle et al., 2001). From a sport team dynamics perspective, attributions represent a complex interplay between collective and personal perspectives. That is, there are at least five types of attributions possible in team sports: (a) the individual athlete provides self-referent explanations for personal performance; a coach (or team leader) advances an explanation or explanations for the performance of (b) an individual athlete and/or (c) the team; (d) the group as a single entity provides a collective explanation for team performance; and (e) individual athletes advance personal explanations for their team’s success or failure. The majority of research in sport has been undertaken at an individual level (i.e., Type (a) above) focusing on athletes’ self-referent attributions for personal performance. To date, no research has examined collective explanations for team performance (i.e., Type (d) above) and research on team-referent group level attributions (i.e., Type (e) above) for team performance has been limited (Biddle et al., 2001).
One reason for the dearth of research on team-referent attributions is the absence of a conceptually and psychometrically sound questionnaire. Specifically, the current team attribution questionnaire most commonly used (Causal Dimension Scales for Teams, CDS-T, Greenlees et al., 2005) is a simple adaptation of a self attribution questionnaire (Casual Dimension Scale II, CDSII, McAuley et al., 1992). It is not conceptually sound from a group perspective. Also, other questionnaires used to study team attributions have been criticized for having poor psychometric properties (Biddle et al., 2001; Crocker, Eklund, & Graham 2002). Not surprisingly, perhaps, theoreticians in sport psychology have called for the development of a conceptually and psychometrically sound instrument to assess team-referent attributions (Rees, Ingledew, & Hardy, 2005).
Our research team has completed three phases in the protocol generally used to develop a sound questionnaire (Shapcott et al., 2007). In Phase 1, we used athletes (n = 246) as active agents to establish the typical attributions advanced to account for team success and failure. In Phase 2, we used these results as well as attribution and psychometric theory to develop a preliminary questionnaire. In Phase 3, we tested the content validity of our questionnaire using both group dynamics and attribution theory experts (n = 16).
The present research program is designed to further develop our team-referent attribution questionnaire. In the first project (currently underway), we are testing its psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure and internal consistency). In the second project, we will examine the predictive validity of the questionnaire. The third project will consist of a team-oriented intervention program designed to modify maladaptive team attributions.
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