Application of the transtheoretical model of change to psychological skills training in intercollegiate athletes

Abstract

Although there is empirical and anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of athletic performance enhancement interventions, a relatively small percentage of athletes take advantage of sport psychology services. It is likely that athletes perceive potential gains and losses in pursuing mental skills training, and the latter may adversely impact athletes' motivations and behaviors regarding consulting a sport psychologist. In order to increase the number of athletes who can benefit from mental skills training, athletes' motivations and behaviors regarding sport psychology consultation must be addressed. The Transtheoretical model of change focuses on the related issues of motivation and behavior change through the constructs of the Stages of Change, Processes of Change, Decisional Balance, and Self-Efficacy. Although the Transtheoretical model has been applied to a variety of behaviors, it has not been applied theoretically or empirically to the area of sport psychology consultation. In an attempt to apply the Transtheoretical Model to this area, questionnaires assessing Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, and Self-Efficacy were developed and cross-validated on two samples (total N = 308) of NCAA Division I Intercollegiate Athletes. The measures showed good internal reliability, with all but one subscale yielding an alpha coefficient of.79 or above, and good construct validity, exhibiting hypothesized relationships among each other and with relevant outcome variables. Finally, the Stage of Change measure exhibited a strong relationship with sport psychology consultations initiated by athletes during the 12 months following questionnaire administration. Of those athletes in the Precontemplation stage, 21% initiated an individual sport psychology consultation in the following year, compared with 39% of those in the Contemplation stage and 63% of those in the Action stage. Based on these results, it appears that the Stage of Change measure developed in the present research may prove to be a useful tool in predicting subsequent initiation of individual sport psychology consultation. Several potentially useful lines of research flow from this study, including continued development of assessment tools, and experiments designed to assess the efficacy of stage-based sport psychology interventions in moving athletes to later stages of change and to greater levels of participation in sport psychology consultation.