The role of perfectionism in predicting athlete burnout, training distress, and sports performance: A short-term and long-term longitudinal perspective.

This study examined the influence of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns on athlete burnout and two key indicators of overtraining syndrome (training distress and subjectively perceived sports performance) using cross-sectional (N = 228), short-term (a 3-month interval, N = 93) and long-term (a 1-year interval, N = 83) longitudinal designs on a sample of adolescent athletes. In the cross-sectional analyses, sequential regressions revealed that perfectionism was a significant predictor of athlete burnout and both indicators of overtraining. In the three-month longitudinal perspective, both dimensions of perfectionism (strivings and concerns) contributed to the prediction of change in burnout and sports performance, but not training distress. When the one-year longitudinal relationships were regarded, only perfectionistic strivings significantly predicted decrease in burnout, and, for sports performance, the predictive power of both dimensions of perfectionism was even more pronounced when compared to the three-month longitudinal data.

Measuring depression in adolescence: Evaluation of a hierarchical factor model of the Children's Depression Inventory and measurement invariance across boys and girls.

BACKGROUND: One of the most widely used instruments to measure depression in childhood and adolescence is Kovacs's Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Even though this particular measure sparked massive interest among researchers, there is no clear consensus about its factorial structure. It has been suggested that inconsistencies in findings can be partly ascribed to the cultural context. The aim of this study was a) to examine and verify the factor structure of CDI in the Czech population and b) to assess gender-related psychometric differences using the mean and covariance structure (MACS) approach and differential item functioning (DIF) analysis. METHODS: The research sample consisted of 1,515 adolescents (ages 12 to 16 years, 53.7% female) from a non-clinical general population. Based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on a random subsample (N = 500), we proposed a model that was subsequently tested on the rest of the sample (N = 1,015) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Following the MACS procedure, we assessed measurement invariance in boys and girls. The between-group comparison was further supplemented by a DIF analysis. RESULTS: The proposed hierarchical four-factor model (General Symptoms, Negative Self-Concept, Inefficiency, and Social Anhedonia) with a second-order factor of depression fitted the data reasonably well (χ2 = 1281.355; df = 320; RMSEA = 0.054, CFI = 0.925). Regarding gender differences, we found no substantial signs of measurement invariance using the MACS approach. Boys and girls differed in first-order latent means (girls scored higher on General Symptoms with a standardized mean difference of 0.52 and on Negative Self-Concept with a standardized mean difference of 0.31). DIF analysis identified three items with differential functioning. However, the levels of differential functioning were only marginal (in two items) or marginal/moderate and the presence of DIF does not substantially influence scoring of CDI. CONCLUSION: In the general adolescent population in the Czech Republic, the CDI can be considered a reliable instrument for screening purposes in clinical settings and for use in research practice. Instead of the originally proposed five-factor model, we recommend using the newly established four-factor structure. The measure seems to show only marginal psychometric differences with respect to gender, and overall measurement invariance in boys and girls seems to be a tenable assumption.

Innovative testing of spatial ability: interactive responding and the use of complex stimuli material.

Despite initial expectations, which have emerged with the advancement of computer technology over the last decade of the twentieth century, scientific literature does not contain many relevant references regarding the development and use of innovative items in psychological testing. Our study presents and evaluates two novel item types. One item type is derived from a standard schematic test item used for the assessment of the spatial perception aspect of spatial ability, enhanced by an interactive response module. The performance on this item type is correlated with the performance on its paper and pencil counterpart. The other innovative item type used complex stimuli in the form of a short video of a ride through a city presented in an on-route perspective, which is intended to measure navigation skills and the ability to keep oneself oriented in space. In this case, the scores were related to the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory and also to the overall score in the paper/pencil test of spatial ability. The second relationship was moderated by gender.

Experimental evaluation of tachistoscopic measurement: a step beyond Wundt's criticism.

This study was designed to assess the possible systematic bias in measurements obtained using tachistoscopic devices from different historical periods of psychological research. Four different tachistoscopic devices were used for brief presentations of stimuli in a letter recognition task. The research sample consisted of 24 participants (12 female, 12 male) in a within-subject experimental design with complete counterbalancing of 4 conditions defined by 4 instrument types: fall tachistoscope, tachistoscope with camera-like shutter, and computer-based tachistoscopes with cathode ray tube and liquid crystal diode display screens. The effects of experimental conditions were examined using a linear mixed model analysis. Our experiment demonstrated that even in standardized settings the type of tachistoscope used for stimulus presentation systematically influenced the participants' performance. We found that the lowest number of correctly recalled stimuli, as well as the highest number of erroneously recalled stimuli, was produced in the camera-like tachistoscope condition. Together, these findings suggest that when results from studies involving tachistoscopic experiments are reviewed, the unique characteristics of each particular instrument used must be considered carefully.