Anderson’s athletic identity concept: French-Canadian validation of the athletic identity questionnaire

Introduction Although sport identity is a notion widely used in the literature to explain one’s attachment to the athletic role, a few valid psychometric tools exist in French to measure such notion. Objective Validation of a French version of Anderson’s (2004) Athletic Identity Questionnaire (AIQ) for a Québec French-speaking population. Method Participants (n = 389) completed the French version of the AIQ and were athletes, former athletes and non-athletes. Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to examine model structure, whereas ANOVAS helped determine construct validity regarding athletic status. Results A four factor first order structure emerged, as well as a second order structure composed of three of the four original facets. Significant differences for all four scales across the three groups appeared. Conclusion AIQ-French is a valid psychometric tool which can measure different degrees of athletic identity best represented jointly by the importance, appearance and competence scales.