JOURNAL OF SPORT & EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY, 2000, 22, 307-326 © 2000 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc. The Measurement of Values in Youth Sport: Development of the Youth Sport Values Questionnaire Martin J. Lee, Jean Whitehead, and Nick Balchin University of Brighton Values are criteria by which people select and evaluate behavior. They have been widely addressed in mainstream psychology but not in sport psychology. The purpose of this research was to develop the Youth Sports Values Ques- tionnaire (YSVQ) and identify the value systems that guide the behavior of adolescent athletes in sport. Qualitative and quantitative methods were com- bined to produce a 20-item questionnaire that was used to identify value pri- orities among 500 male and female participants aged between 12 and 16 years. Most imporiant were enjoyment and personal achievement; least important was winning. Value rankings were consistent across subgroups based on gen- der, age, sport type, and level of performance. Limitations of structure and content are discussed, together with recommendations for future development. Key words: motivation, beliefs, cognitions, morality, children Values have been the subject of considerable research in mainstream psy- chology since the 1950s but have received limited attention in sport psychology until recently. This is partly the result of a lack of understanding of the concept itself and partly of the lack of a suitable measurement instrument for values. Schwartz (1994) has defined values as “desirable trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or a social entity” (p. 21). He then commented that this definition implies that (a) values serve the interests of individuals or groups, (b) they motivate action by giving it both direction and intensity, (c) they function as standards by which behavior is evalu- ated, and (d) individuals learn values from the dominant values of the social groups to which they belong and through their own individual experiences, Furthermore, the qualification that values are transsituational indicates that they guide behavior in all life situations, and the view that they vary in importance implies that they can be ranked in order of importance. A final point in this context is that the pro- cess of examining values and value systems can be value free to the extent that the values chosen are derived from the population of interest, are not preselected by a researcher, and are conceived as, in Kluckhohn’s (1951) terms, “conceptions of the desirable.” Lee and Whitehead are with the Chelsea School Research Centre, University of Brighton, England. Nick Balchin is studying educational psychology at the University of Dundee, Scotland. 7 307308 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin In everyday life, values might be expressed as such things as a desire for world peace, personal salvation, or honesty. In sport, they might include not only criteria of success, such as winning or playing well, but also fair play, sportsman- ship, friendship, and tolerance, which are concerned with the quality of interaction during the activity. Historical Background of the Study of Values Values have been an important topic for study in social sciences because they address the goals to which people and societies aspire and the standards that they set for themselves. Discussions of values frequently occur in political, eco- nomic, religious, and educational debates, and the issues raised have been ad- dressed by research in these and other fields (Braithwaite & Scott, 1991). Indeed, Milton Rokeach proclaimed in his seminal book on values that “the value concept, more than any other, should occupy a central position across all social sciences. . . . More than any other concept it is . . . able to unify the diverse interests of all the sciences concerned with human behavior” (1973, p. 3). Nevertheless, until rela- tively recently there had been a considerable degree of disagreement about the nature of the concept and about the measurement of values and value systems. ‘Two conceptual issues hampered the growth of values research—the first is the clarification of the term values, and the second, its distinction from the attitude con- cept—and they have continued to be obstacles to understanding in sport psychology. Rokeach (1973) contributed greatly to the clarification process. He acknowledged the broad base of interest in values and the debts that he owes to philosophy, soci- ology, psychology, and anthropology in his work and argued that writings about values fell into one of two camps. The first identified values as criteria that are held by people, and the second considered values as properties of objects. In the first case we say that a person “has a value,” whereas in the second we can say that an object “has value” or “is valuable.” Rokeach concluded that it was more produc- tive for social science to adopt the “values as criteria” position than the “values as properties” position. Consequently, in accepting Kluckhohn’s (1951) expression of values as “conceptions of the desirable,” Rokeach defined value as “an endur- ing belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (p. 5). Furthermore, he defined a value system as “an enduring organi- zation of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of exist- ence along a continuum of importance” (p. 5). These ideas pulled together a great deal of what had gone before, and the resulting concepts provided the basis for many of the advances in research into human values during the last 3 decades. The second distinction to be made is that between attitudes and values. In an assessment of instruments that measure values, Braithwaite and Scott (1991) com- mented that the advances and convergence in the conceptualization of values re- vealed three obstacles. The first was the lack of consistency of early measures with the notion of the “conception of the desirable.” The second was the inability of researchers to identify elements of the value domain, which resulted in a piece- meal approach to the universe of values available. The third was a failure to specify an appropriate level of abstraction for items; that is, the distinction between atti- tudes and values was difficult to identify.Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 309 The confusion of the two concepts might well have its roots in the influential view that the attitude concept was “the most distinctive and indispensable concept in... American social psychology.” (Allport, 1968, p. 59). Although the concept might now receive less attention than it did in 1968, attitudes remain an important element in social-psychological research and are commonly defined as a “learned pre-disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, p. 5). Rokeach (1973) specifically addressed the distinction of attitudes and val- ues and encapsulated the difference as, essentially, one of level of abstraction. He considered that “an attitude refers to an organization of several beliefs around a specific object or situation... . A value . . . refers to a single belief of a very specific kind” (p. 18). He drew a number of inferences from this. First, a value transcends situations and objects, whereas an attitude is specific to them. Second, a value provides a standard, whereas an attitude does not. Third, people have a small number of values to guide their goals and behavioral standards, but they have as many attitudes as situations and objects that they encounter. Fourth, values are more central cognitions than attitudes and hence determine both attitudes and behavior. Fifth, values are more immediately linked to motivational tendencies than are attitudes, which are only reflective of value priorities. With reference to this last point, Katz (1960) identified an important functional aspect of the rela- tionship between values and attitudes. He considered that one of the functions of attitudes is that of expressing the more general principles embodied in values. Therefore, it can be argued that attitudes in sport, such as those toward cheating and fair play, are expressions of an individual’s underlying value system. Measurement of Values Apart from his clarification of the concept of values, Rokeach (1973) also highlighted differences in the way attitudes and values are measured. The concept of values addresses the desirability of a single belief and incorporates the impor- tant consideration of the relative importance of different beliefs in determining behavior. This idea is expressed in the recognition of values as goals that vary in importance and can be organized in order of priority, as a hierarchy that is referred to as the value system (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1994). On the other hand, atti- tudes are typically measured by questions about the desirability of several beliefs about some single object or situation, with no implication of the priority of their relative importance. Therefore, it is possible to express equally strong attitudes toward different attitude objects. So, for example, a player might express strong support for winning and, simultaneously, for playing fairly. Rokeach’s particular methodological contribution was the Rokeach Value Survey (1967). It presents two lists—18 instrumental values (modes of conduct) and 18 terminal values (end-states of existence)—which respondents are required to arrange in order of importance to them as guiding principles in their lives. How- ever, it produces data that are not readily amenable to sophisticated analyses. The instrument has been criticized on the grounds of the adequacy of item sampling and the single-item nature of the measures. The lists used by Rokeach are based on values derived from interviews with American adults and from a selection of personality descriptors assembled by Anderson (1968). Other research310 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin has indicated that the values included are a good representation of the available universe of values (see Braithwaite & Scott, 1991) but that the single-item mea- sures are subject to variation in interpretation and response. Braithwaite and Scott report that item consistency varies with the item but comment that the utility of the instrument might depend on the particular use to which it is put in a given situation. Subsequently, Schwartz (1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987, 1990) has pro- duced an instrument based on the Rokeach Value Survey but that measures multi- item value domains. Schwartz and Bilsky (1987) argued that human beings must deal with three demands in life: the satisfaction of biological needs, the demands of coordinated social action, and the need for group functioning and survival. On this basis they proposed that the content of people’s value systems could be de- scribed in terms of two fundamental motivational dimensions: (a) “self-transcen- dence” to “self-enhancement,” for example, altruism and tolerance versus power and authority, and (b) “openness to change” to “conservation,” for example, ex- citement and novelty versus self-restraint and obedience. The two dimensions pro- vide a framework in which higher order value domains can be organized such that adjacent domains are complementary and conflicting domains are in opposition. The model has since been modified and describes 10 groups of values that are considered to govern the selection of behavior and expression of attitudes and is supported by extensive data (see Schwartz, 1992, 1994). Although acknowledging the influence of Rokeach’s conception of values, Schwartz refined the measure- ment by tapping the value types predicted by his theoretical model (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987, 1990). After much experimentation he decided on a rating-scale for- mat that is similar to an attitude scale but in which the ratings can be transformed to rankings (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990). This allows researchers to describe value systems among populations. Describing the value system of a single individual is more problematic, however, because the measure permits equal rat- ings, which one can expect to be differentiated by ranks when averaged across the sample but which cannot be so easily distinguished for individuals. Values in Sport Because values are considered universal in the sense that they are principles that govern all aspects of our lives, they should also govern sport participation. For example, some athletes might value competitive success above all, whereas others might value the development of skill or friendship. However, the concept and role of values have not been widely investigated in sport psychology, and the number of studies using values as a fundamental concept in the study of fair play is limited (Lee & Cook, 1989; Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). Despite numerous references to values in the literature, there has been little sustained attempt to either (a) adopt the “concept of the desirable,” (b) devise a suitable measure based on that prin- ciple, or (c) clearly distinguish values from attitudes. Nevertheless, in recent years, sports psychologists have shown a growing interest in values and begun to address these shortcomings. This has resulted in the presentation of data on values in youth sport, notably in Europe (e.g., Cruz, Boixados, Capdevila, Mimbrero, Torregrosa, & Valiente, 1999; Cruz, Boixados, Valiente, & Capdevila, 1995; Lee, 1997; Lee, Whitehead, & Balchin, 1998; Mielke & Bahlke, 1995; Steenbergen, Buisman, De Knop, & Lucassen, 1998).Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 311 The use of the word value in the sense of objects serving a purpose—for example, sport being valuable—has attracted considerable attention in sport and health psychology (e.g,, Eccles & Harold, 1991; Horn, Kimiecik, Maltbie, Wong, & Rojas, 1999; Powell, 1996). However, this focus might have diverted attention from the understanding of the concept of “a value” as a guiding principle in life, the posi- tion that characterizes the bulk of work on “values” in contemporary psychology. Eccles and coworkers have been particularly concerned with achievement motivation and provide a model in which four types of subjective task value are identified: utility value, attainment value, incentive value, and perceived cost (Eccles & Harold, 1991; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). However, Wigfield and Eccles ac- knowledged the broader connotation of the value concept advanced by Rokeach and drew attention to the problems of drawing close correspondence between val- ues and behavior based on them. They comment that greater correspondence is found in the attitude-behavior relationship when attitudes are more specifically defined and that the same might be expected in the case of values. However, it is precisely because the adoption of the “values as criteria” position allows a range of application beyond that of achievement behavior that they are useful as organiz- ing constructs. Measurement of Values in Sport Initial reviews of the literature (Lee & Cook, 1989; Lee, O’Donoghue, & Hodgson, 1990) indicated that the few studies that had addressed the concept of values in a sport setting used rather rudimentary instruments. Furthermore, sport psychologists have not always been clear about the distinction between attitudes and values at either the conceptual or the operational level. For example, Webb (1969) created the Professionalization of Attitudes Scale, widely referred to as the Webb Scale, to measure professional attitudes in sport. It is, however, essentially a value scale because it arranges responses in order of importance. It requires ath- letes to rank “playing well,” “winning,” and “playing fairly” in sport to produce a scale of “professionalization.” Thus, the ranking requires respondents to report preferences for three different value dimensions. However, although commend- ably simple and hence suitable for use with target samples of young competitors (versions for children aged 8-11 and adolescents 12-18 were developed), the scope of the values included is neither comprehensive nor derived from the population of interest. Hence, many important constructs might have been overlooked. Some time later, Simmons and Dickinson (1986) drew on a rationale de- rived from Rokeach in constructing a 14-item scale to measure athletes’ values. When administered to young adults, the 14 items in the instrument reduced to five meaningful factors, but there was no indication that the values used were drawn either from any theoretical basis or from the population of interest. In order to overcome the criticism that measures were not salient to the tar- get population, Lee and Cockman (1995) followed Braithwaite and Law’s (1985) advice and used an inductive procedure to identify values that adolescent athletes express spontaneously. They adapted Kohlberg’s method (see Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) by discussing sport-specific moral dilemmas in semistructured interviews with 87 young male soccer players and male and female tennis players in order to prompt the expression of salient values. Eighteen values were identified, and no312 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin new categories were added after the analysis of 19 of the 87 transcripts. The authors concluded that a comprehensive set of values salient to moral decision making in sport had been identified. To date, however, there has been no instrument to measure the structure, or relative priorities, of value systems among youth sport participants that has been derived from values expressed by that population. The need for a measure of val- ues in youth sport developed from the desire both to fill that gap and to provide an alternative approach to the study of moral attitudes and behavior in sport. In so doing it would draw more directly on a social-psychological tradition than does the predominant cognitive-developmental model (e.g., see Shields & Brede- meier, 1995). Such an instrument would permit the description of the value sys- tems of young athletes, but it would also facilitate the exploration of relationships between (a) values of athletes in different social contexts; (b) athletes’ values and those of significant others such as parents, coaches, teachers, and peer group mem- bers; and (c) values and other variables such as sociomoral attitudes, participation and achievement motives, and sport attrition. The purpose of this series of studies, therefore, was to construct such an instrument. Method The research strategy was derived from Rokeach (1973), Braithwaite and Law (1985), and Schwartz (1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990). Rokeach provided the basic principle of measuring the relative importance of values as standards to guide behavior by describing a hierarchical system of beliefs. Braithwaite and Law (1985) highlighted the importance of deriving salient values from the popula- tion of interest. Schwartz (1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990) provided the format of arating scale, as opposed to a ranking, that could be completed by young people and had the advantage of being more amenable to statistical analyses. The research program took the form outlined in Figure 1. The Youth Sport Values Questionnaire (YSVQ) was constructed by con- ducting a series of four studies to develop a reliable and valid instrument based on the values identified by Lee and Cockman (1995). Study 4 also allowed the iden- tification of value systems for a population of adolescent athletes in England. After the formulation of the YSVQ, a fifth study was conducted to assess its vulner- ability to social-desirability response sets. Study 1 Purpose and Method Study 1 was designed to (a) establish the ecological validity for youth sport participants of the 18 values identified by Lee and Cockman (1995) and (b) de- velop meaningful value statements or proxies to represent each of them. Although each value identified had been given a label and a descriptor, they were adult expressions of psychological constructs. In order to assess the values of young athletes it was necessary to establish both that the constructs had meaning for that population and that each value could be represented by a clearly understandable item in a questionnaire. These aims were achieved by using focus groups to facilitate the discussion and clarification of values and the resolution of disagreements.Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 313 Literature review and instrument survey (Lee & Cook, 1989; Lee, O'Donoghue, & Hodgson, 1990) PRELIMINARY PHASE Identification of constructs (Lee & Cockman, 1995) Study 1: Clarification of constructs: Focus groups QUALITATIVE PHASE QUESTIONNAIRE CONSTRUCTION = and format Study 4: Survey sample identification Pilot Instruments Study 2: item Format Study 3: Testing Alternative Items: item evaluation item selection QUANTITATIVE PHASE data collection * final item selection Study 5: * psychometric Social Desirability evaluation Assessment * data description Figure 1 — The Youth Sports Values Questionnaire development program. Participants and Procedure Participants were 50 sports club members (24 boys, 26 gitls), aged 11-17 years, drawn from five secondary schools in southern England. After informed- consent pro- cedures, interviews were conducted in 11 groups, each with 3-6 members. The mean- ingfulness of sport values was examined by constructing a simple game for participants to complete before a group discussion. In the game, two lists were presented in col- umns on a single sheet of paper. The first column was the list of value labels taken from the values identified by Lee and Cockman (1995). The second was a list of condensed, and therefore simplified, descriptors derived from the same source. The lists were broken into three loosely defined sets of similar values that represented interpretations of success, group identity, and self-expression. For numerical convenience, health and fitness was included in the group-identity set. The lists were arranged within those314 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin groups such that no value was located opposite its descriptor. The task was to link each value to its descriptor by drawing a line between the items that the participants consid- ered to match. Breaking the list into groups made the task easier and less time consum- ing and encouraged discrimination between similar values. Participants who finished the task early were asked to write a synonym for each value. When all had completed the task, the responses were discussed, and the disparate responses provided the basis for clarification of the concepts. Alternative words or phrases for the values were dis- cussed until a degree of agreement and clarity was reached. All discussions were re- corded and subsequently transcribed. The transcripts revealed that the participants largely understood the value concepts, although the adult phrasing was not immediately accessible. Most easily understood was health and fitness (88% correct links), whereas most difficult was contract maintenance (5% correct links). The latter concept expresses the implicit contract that players of a game make with each other to play according to an agreed- on set of constraints, whether governed by the rules or not. Without such an agree- ment the game cannot proceed, Although the term itself was not readily understood by participants, it was implied in subsequent discussions and, hence, represented a construct that was meaningful to them. After the analysis of transcripts, further exemplars were developed, result- ing in a pool of about 6 items to represent each value. However, following Rokeach (1973), we wanted to identify a manageable set of single values in order to de- scribe a value system. Therefore, a panel of three experienced researchers selected the best single item as a proxy for each value on the basis of conceptual clarity and simplicity, The proxies were written as first-person statements. For example, the statement “I don’t spoil the game or competition” represented contract mainte- nance. The 18 initial proxies are given in Table 1. Study 2 Purpose The purpose of Study 2, which was the first of two pilot tests of the proto- type questionnaire, was to establish a suitable format to present the content of the values in an understandable way for the target age group and to obtain a range of responses. In this research, we adapted two facets of the Schwartz Value Survey for use with young participants, First, we modified the instruction to rate each value on a measure of importance “as a guiding principle in my life” to the simpler “When I do sport it is important to me that. . . .” Both Rokeach and Schwartz specify “importance” as the criterion of evaluation. Second, the demand to con- sider the context of participating in sport was used to specify the situation clearly. Hence, this format reflects the criteria by which participants select their behavior and value their participation in the activity. Finally, we used seven rather than nine response categories in order to reduce the demands of fine discrimination. Method ‘Two forms of the value scale were developed. Form A used the stem, “When I do sport it is important to me that . . .” followed by the value item; for example,Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 315 Table 1 Selected Value Items From Focus Group Interviews Value Value descriptor 1. Being fair Tam fair and don’t cheat. 2. Companionship Tam there with my friends. 3. Compassion Tam concemed about the people around me in my sport. 4. Conformity try to fit in with the group. 5. Conscientious Tam reliable and give 100% when playing or competing. 6. Contract maintenance | don’t spoil the game or competition. 7. Enjoyment Tenjoy myself and have fun. 8. Good game Thave a close game, race, or event. 9. Health and fitness I get fit and healthy through sport. 10. Obedience Ido what I am told. 11. Personal achievement — I put in the best performance I can. 12. Public image Tlook good. 13. Self-actualization I get a buzz or feel really good when playing. 14. Showing skill Ido the skills or techniques well. 15. Sportsmanship Iam well mannered, sporting, and I am not a bad loser. 16. Team cohesion [lift the team when things are difficult. 17. Tolerance I try and get on with the other people in my sport, even if I don’t like them. 18. Winning I win or beat other people. for conscientious, the item stated “I am reliable and give 100% when playing or competing.” The participants responded on a 7-point rating scale of importance, from —1, This idea is the opposite of what I believe, to 0, This idea is not important to me, to 5, This idea is extremely important to me. Schwartz recommends an asym- metric rating scale of this type for measuring values because it permits the expres- sion of “negative” values, which is particularly important in cross-cultural studies, in which certain values might be alien to a specific culture (Schwartz, 1992, 1994). Form B used a format suggested by S. Schwartz (personal communication, March 1995) as being helpful for use with young people. The value item to be rated was a description of a person whose activity represented the value, rather than an item with an abstract concept of a value. For example, the item for consci- entious stated, “You can always rely on Pete; he never lets you down and always gives 100%.” Participants responded on a similar 7-point rating scale, but one that rated their similarity to the described person: -1 = This person is the opposite of me to 5 = This person is very much like me. The 18 items derived from Study 1 were constructed in the format for Form A, and equivalent items were then developed in the format for Form B. Care was taken to ensure that the linguistic structure of each item would be acceptable to the target population.316 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin Participants and Procedure Participants were 453 sports competitors (253 boys, 200 girls), aged 12-16 years (M = 14.46, SD = 1.20), in a wide range of sports. Form A of the instrument was completed by 254 participants, and Form B, by 199. After the administration, the researcher discussed the suitability of the instruments and any difficulties that participants had encountered in their completion. ' As expected, the values were viewed as important, with 14 of the 18 values having scores >3.00 on each scale (M,,,.,,= 3-53, SD = 1.23; M,,_.,= 3.10, SD = 1.32). Both scales, however, provided a wide range of responses to the individual values, and only the highest ranked value failed to elicit a score of either -1 or 0 from the respondents. Some negative skewness had been anticipated, but it was not severe, with the mean skewness <1.00 for each form. The correlation between the mean ratings of the values in the two ques- tionnaires was r = .79, p < .01, and the correlation between the value ranks was 1, = 55, p < 05. These data suggest that the different forms of questionnaire were similar but that the items were not directly equivalent and there were some differences in interpretation of the scales. Form A was chosen in preference to Form B because it had a simpler format and fewer ratings at the lower end of the scale. Study 3 Purpose and Method The purpose of the second pilot study was to test alternative items for each value and use statistical criteria to select the best items that had been identified by the focus groups. The format of the Form A questionnaire was used; that is, items followed the stem “When I do sport it is important to me that. . . ” A 46-item questionnaire was constructed using all the items from both Form A and Form B. The Form B items were modified to permit a slightly different interpretation or simpler wording. Ten additional items were drawn from the pool to provide a third choice for values that had been most difficult to express in a sentence. This gave a choice of two or three items for each value. Participants and Procedure Participants were 218 competitive athletes (113 boys, 105 girls) aged be- tween 12 and 16 years (iM = 13.43, SD = 1.17), selected from three schools. The sample was weighted toward the younger end because we reasoned that younger participants would experience most difficulty if items were not clear. 'In these studies, approval for research in schools was obtained through head teach- ers, and teaching staff administered questionnaires according to a strict protocol that had been developed during pilot studies. Questionnaires were administered in a classroom or a quiet room in a sports club. Participants were assured of confidentiality and given TD num- bers to protect their identity. Completed questionnaires were sealed in large envelopes in the presence of the participants.Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 317 Ttem-total correlations were computed for boys, girls, and the overall sample, using Spearman’s rank-order correlation. They were examined for each value in order to identify the item that provided the strongest statistical indicator of the construct and was unrelated to other values, In 11 cases the simplified wording of the B items resulted in a higher item-total correlation than for the A items. For example, “I don’t let anyone down” was preferred to “I am reliable and give 100% when playing or competing.” Boys and girls showed different preferences in only four cases. In these cases the girls’ choice was used because it was most consistent with the overall group or with other evidence.” In equivocal cases, conceptual cri- teria were given priority and the item-total correlations were used for guidance. Alternative items for three values were retained for further testing in Study 4. Study 4 The purpose of Study 4 was to use the YSVQ to provide data on the prevail- ing value system in a population of competitive athletes aged 12~15 years, inclu- sive. To meet this objective we conducted a survey to identify the relative importance of sports values in young competitors in six specified sports. There were three team sports (soccer, rugby, and netball) and three individual sports (tennis, bad- minton, and track and field). Instrument The questionnaire used in the survey contained 23 items: 18 value state- ments; | alternative for each of the values contract maintenance, good game, and obedience; and 2 items that made conflicting statements and could be used to screen for inconsistent responses. The response format was as described for Study 2 (Form A). Decisions on which alternative item to use for three of the values were made as described for Study 3. The two screening items, included as a consistency check, were “I can wear what I like” and “I wear the right kit for it.” Participants and Procedure Participants were 1,391 young competitors (647 boys, 728 girls, 16 gender not stated) aged 12-18 years (M = 13.35, SD = 1.51). They were drawn from five major urban areas—London, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and the West Mid- lands—and from nonurban schools in the southeast of England. The target sample (n= 500) was aged 12-16 years (M = 13.68, SD = 0.97) and comprised 47% boys and 53% girls, 19% from metropolitan (urban) districts and 81% from nonurban schools, and 75% from team sports and 25% from individual sports. Overall, 70% represented their school or club, 26% played at district or county level, and 4% competed at regional level or higher. No participants were dropped for inconsis- tencies in the screening items. 2Additional data were obtained from Pearson’s product-moment correlations and from confirmatory factor analyses, which were conducted to derive loadings on discrete value factors that would be free of measurement error and hence more accurate than item- total correlations.318 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin Value Systems Table 2 shows the order of mean value rankings that formed the value sys- tem for the target sample. Enjoyment had the highest priority, followed by per- sonal achievement. Winning was given the least importance. A similar ranking was constructed from a further, more inclusive, sample of 614 (282 boys, 318 girls, 14 gender not stated) drawn from a wider range of age, sports, and level of perfor- mance. Correlations between the value systems of the two samples were very high (r=.99, r, = .98; both p < .01). Differences in ranks were minor, and mean differ- ences between all these values were very small (M = 0.04, SD = 0.16). We con- sider, therefore, that the data shown in Table 2 can be taken to represent the value system typical of adolescent athletes in England. We also examined the ratings and rankings of values across groupings within the criterion sample according to (a) gender, (b) sport type (team or individual), (c) age group, and (d) level of performance. These are presented in Table 3. Both ratings and rankings are very similar across these subgroups: For gender, r = .95 for ratings and r, = .93 for rankings (both p <.01). Similar results are reported for correlations between players of team and individual sports (r = .99, r_, = .96; both Pp <.01). Across age groups (92 .08), this was a feature of the large sample size, and no correlation accounted for more than 3% of variance; hence these data show little cause for concern. Moreover, the correlation between the mean scores on the PRQ and YSVQ was negligible, y = .03 in contrast to r = .17 and .27 reported by Schwartz et al. (1997). This suggests that there was little tendency to inflate value ratings and that there is no need to partial out this correlation. 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I L a Ww Beavt anpe A reuorsog foous OULULIOHII JO [9A] dnoip a8y adi nods sopueg, pueysug ur (aIsnPUP) sxkaK ST-ZT paBy sjuedpHeg syiodg Suoury sanqea syrodg Jo syuey pue ‘suonetag prepuerg ‘SURAT ¢ 3IqUI,Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 321 ot se (10%) (91) 907% wD (81) S61 os) (LD) 00% arp (OD 89'€ wen (SD LEE ez L) $8" (ost) OD we (660) © we aep (ED Lye 821 ere (ro) (SD OLT uy (LD 181 acy (OD sre (sen) (SD Ive orp GD ere Grp (ed sve (7p (oD ist (ro) ise arp aD sse Ise ore (oD (8) LoL oD (21) 881 (gs'1) (1) S61 (en (Dose (rd FD 887 (rd cD 80¢ (orp en 80¢ (erp anece or) ere (8D Lt vd (41) 607 (so (on eez ory (en sce sD apes (en ones (rp Gp see oD (eve (01) Oonece Lu Ire (ep (8D se (sD DUI (sD COD O8'I (sed (SD tT orp (epore a) ree (ep oD Loe arp () ove utp (6) 8€°€ 881 eve (391) (sD €€eT as) (LD bet (sD) (OD wz wen (sD we (er) (PD 667 sD (sce @eD (ED ree (co) (ID sve. oD opie Lol Ire aod (81) 660 os) (9D Loz oly) “DWT arp (D 10€ asp (sD S67 or) (pore GED (Dive or) 1) 69'€ ap ove “sopua8 s1aqp aes 101 pip swuedionund omy “swak 91-1 =910 ss1eok c1-pl = SIM SS18OK pI-€1 = pL S194 €1-Z1 = ELA STeMprALpUT = [ Aueay = J “2 TewOg = ‘aI = WZ MOY Ur pozisoupuored ase suOReAAp prepures ‘Suny o1p UE Jolpoue Iya po onyea zeyL 3oIB soTwoIpUT yuEA v SUIMOTIO} (=) USTs sjenbo ue ‘sosouuaEd ur TuPyuRA SUE Aq PaMosfos ‘AMON ISIE Tp UL UOAIE S] anpEA Yee 109 ULL DILL, “2/ONY 9el lee (9) (SD 8rL sD (DELL (gs) ODS8LT ed GDOOE cD GD v0 ard Gree Ged (Dive (erp onsre Gen aD ere ze sve (et) (81) 0¢1 (oD D164 (oD) (91) 807 arp GD 67 (uD OD) HOE (rp (ensre wen) (ci ove arp (ID sre azp (=8) €s"€ soz ove arp (1) 190 (xD (01D 991 (as) (DoT orp (SD Lz Grp (svt (ry (cD tore ord (eD 96% (erp CD sre een ove cee u ore w (sD (81) 86 Surat, os) (LD Loz Ayquszoyuo> sD (OD yz dujsuoredurog Grp (sD6re — eBeutongng (rp (FD 97'¢ Vonezyemoe-jag ar) (DUPE sso APIO, Grp Iss woUanioxsy orp (OL) 6r'E — snonuarosuoc, rp (ED Ore — UOIsayoo ureay,322 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin Discussion The purpose of this series of studies was to construct an instrument to permit the description of the value systems of young athletes. In contrast to some earlier instruments (e.g., Simmons & Dickinson, 1986; Webb, 1969), the YSVQ has been constructed by developing meaningful items directly from the population of inter- est in a procedure that combined both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Lee and Cockman (1995) used interviews to identify salient value constructs. In the present study, items based on those constructs were developed by focus-group discussions and then piloted to establish the structure and content of the instru- ment. The pilot testing produced a clear format that both presented brief items in the form of simply worded sentences and elicited a good range of response; it also identified the best indicator for each value. As shown by the second survey sample, which was more diverse in nature, the format of the instrument has enabled it to be easily accessed by young athletes in an age range of 11-18 with similar results. Thus we believe that the language is appropriate, the stimulus item format is mean- ingful, and the response format manageable. Utility The purpose of the YSVQ is to identify the value priorities of young ath- letes. Because the response format is a rating scale, it can yield group scores for each value that can then be ranked in order of importance. The ranking describes the predominant value system in that group, which can then be compared with the value systems of other groups. The data show a good distribution of scores on all values. Because values are considered conceptions of the desirable, some degree of social desirability and negative skewness on the scale might be expected. However, there was no evi- dence of a social-desirability response bias, the items yielded a wide range of responses, and skewness was modest. This suggests that the instrument should yield meaningful relationships with other stable psychological constructs. In its present form, the YSVQ measures 18 discrete values that were identi- fied as being different from one another and that represent the values that are commonly expressed by youth sport competitors. Hence, it is not appropriate to calculate a measure of internal consistency, but the instrument remains subject to the limitations of single-item measures discussed by Braithwaite and Scott (1991). However, measures of retest reliability after 4 weeks have been obtained in a sub- sequent study and are considered acceptable at this stage of development.’ The limited number of items encourages a good response rate from the target age group. Although concerns about the demands of ranking a large number of items do not hold when a rating scale is used, it might still be advantageous to use a relatively smal] number of items with adolescents. 5In a sample of 47 competitive athletes (23 boys, 24 girls) aged 12-15 years (M = 14.2, SD = 1.0) retested after 4 weeks, all retest reliabilities were significant, 16 of them at p<.001, mean r=.61, SD = 0.12. Reliability was greater for girls (r = .66, SD = 0.15) than for boys (r= .57, SD = 0.15) and showed only four values for which r < .60. In this study a later version of the YSVQ was used, in which the proxy for public image was “I look good” (replacing “I show a good image to others”).Measurement of Values in Youth Sport / 323 Value Systems of Young Athletes The value system identified in the survey showed that the most important thing for young athletes is to enjoy their sport. This appears to be consistent with data on young people’s reasons for participating in sport that show the preeminence of fun among other motives, in samples from the United States, Canada, and Aus- tralia (e.g., Gould, Feltz, & Weiss, 1985; Kolt et al., 1999). Second, it is instructive to note the structural relationship between personal achievement and winning, which are widely separated in the hierarchy. Winning is ranked at the bottom, and per- sonal achievement is ranked second. Similar relationships have been reported in the participation-motivation literature (e.g., Klint & Weiss, 1987; Kolt et al.). How- ever, it should be noted that studies of participation motives differ in focus and content from studies of values. The study of participation motives commonly ad- dresses the utility value of the items, whereas the value concept addresses the criteria for the selection and evaluation of behavior, during the activity, on a broader front. Thus, studies of participation motives do not include such issues as compas- sion, tolerance, or fair play. The high correlations of value rankings across the different criterion groups presented here suggest that the structure of value systems identified is consistent among those groups, whereas differences in mean ratings indicate the differential importance of sporting values to them. Hence, girls are seen to attach less impor- tance to sporting values than boys are, and sporting values appear to become less important with increasing age but more important at higher levels of performance. These trends might be explained by a lower level of commitment to sport on the part of girls, a decline in commitment during adolescence as other interests be- come more prominent, and a necessary increase in commitment as participants aspire to higher levels of achievement. Limitations Following the advice of Braithwaite and Law (1985) to derive values from the population of interest, we adopted a qualitative approach to identifying salient constructs. This was followed by a strategy of constructing questionnaire items that represented those constructs. In such a strategy statistical criteria become im- portant in making decisions, and it is possible that some subtleties of meaning become lost in the translation. For example, the value good game became ex- pressed as excitement, but the original idea contained a more complex and wider range of concepts. The inclusion of more items to address each construct would help alleviate this problem. Although we assumed that the content of the YSVQ is comprehensive be- cause the values expressed in Lee and Cockman’s (1995) interviews were found in only a small sample of the available data, there is another possibility. The original interviews were carried out using moral dilemmas as stimuli. This was specifically in order to access the cognitions that underpinned the participants’ thinking about moral issues. It is possible that other stimulus events would reveal an additional range of constructs. It would be desirable to establish the construct and predictive validity of the ‘YSVQ. For example, the prediction of ethical attitudes from social or moral values would illustrate the value-expressive function of values proposed by Katz (1960). Although this form of the YSVQ might permit such investigation, it might be more324 / Lee, Whitehead, and Balchin effectively conducted with multi-item scales to evaluate superordinate value do- mains. With that in mind we have begun to extend the YSVQ to examine appropri- ate value groupings. Future Directions This instrument breaks new ground and provides the potential for examining such issues as the tension between competitive success and moral behavior as pre- dicted by Schwartz’s (1992) model. The identification of value systems might lead to comparisons among the value priorities held by young people in life and in sport, in different sports, and in different sport contexts or countries. Exploration of relationships between athletes’ values and those, expressed or perceived, of significant others will promote the understanding of value transference in sport and, hence, the role of parents, teachers, coaches, and sports institutions in that process. Finally, the instrument permits the examination of relationships between value systems and other variables, such as achievement motivation, that are of interest to psychologists in youth sport. We are currently developing the instrument further, using multi-item scales that are representative of higher order groupings, in order to further extend the sociopsychological explanations of sportspersonship. 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