Construct validity of the physical Education State Anxiety Scale: a multitrait-multimethod approach.

The present study investigated the construct validity of the Physical Education State Anxiety Scale with the employment of multitrait-multimethod analysis with regard to responses of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2. 233 high school students (Mage = 13.6 yr., SD=.9) completed the Physical Education State Anxiety Scale and an adapted physical education version of Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2. Examination of fit indices and anxiety dimensions' correlations indicated satisfactory convergent validity (significant difference in chi2 and CFI emerged). Convergent validities were higher than correlations among other variables suggesting fairly good discriminant validity; however, the fit indices of the confirmatory factor analyses showed relatively low discriminant validity (nonsignificant delta chi2 and a small CFI difference emerged). Present findings provide evidence on the construct validity of the adapted version and suggest it can be used with high school students to assess state anxiety in physical education.