International Journal of Sport Psychology

PROCEDURES
Following approval from the university behavioral research ethics board, a list of provincial
sport organizations in Saskatchewan was obtained from the Sask Sport website
(www.sasksport.sk.ca) and all were contacted. Upon the approval from each sport organization
and coaching staff, the first author or a research assistant attended a practice session to
explain the purposes and procedures of the study. Consent and assent forms were distributed
and taken home to be completed by both the athletes and their parent or guardian. Forms
were returned, generally within a week, to the coaching staff. A member of the research team
then returned to administer the questionnaire and was present to answer questions. Participants
first completed demographic questions. They then completed an open-ended section in
which they were asked to describe situations that made them uncomfortable or nervous, any
overall body concerns, and how they dealt with those concerns. The purpose of this section
was to act as a cue to facilitate thinking about issues relevant to the study, and was not used in
the analyses. The remaining measures were then completed in the following order: state SPA,
coping, and trait SPA. Responses were anonymous, and questionnaires took 15-45 minutes to
complete.
MEASURES
Demographics. Participants were asked to indicate gender, age, height, weight, sport
involvement, and corresponding team/club names and level (club, provincial, national, and
/or international).
State SPA. The state SPA measure was adapted from Kowalski et al. (2006) who developed
the measure for use with an adolescent female non-sport sample. Athletes first described
a situation in sport where they felt uncomfortable or nervous because their body was seen or
evaluated by other people. Specifically, they were asked to "Please describe the situation that
made you feel the most uncomfortable in the past year." Second, they described why the situation
made them feel uncomfortable or nervous. Third, they rated their level of state SPA on
a visual analogue scale in reference to how uncomfortable or nervous they were in the situation,
ranging from 0 (not uncomfortable or nervous) to 100 (extremely uncomfortable or nervous).
Convergent validity was supported by Kowalski and colleagues (2006) via a significant
relationship with trait SPA (r = .44, p < .05). All situations reported by the adolescents were
double-checked and confirmed as body evaluation scenarios.
Coping strategies, functions, and effectiveness. Open-ended questions were utilized to
gather information on the coping strategies athletes used to cope with the experience of SPA
in the self-identified situation described in the state SPA measure. Participants were provided
with the following instructions, "Now we are interested in the specific ways to deal with the
situation that you described". They were provided instructions to fill in only as many strategies
as they tried, regardless of whether or not the strategy was successful. On each page, if
applicable, they completed their response to the follow item stem, "To manage the uncomfortable
or nervous situation, I: _______". To assess function, participants indicated (yes/no)
whether each strategy was (1) an attempt to change the situation (problem-focused); (2)
whether it helped them to manage or control their feelings (emotion-focused); and (3)
whether it was an attempt to physically or mentally avoid the situation (avoidance). They then
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