Predictors of parental involvement activities in sport

Pedro Teques */**, Sidónio Serpa *, António Rosado * and Luis Calmeiro ***

(*) Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon, Portugal
(**) Sport Sciences School of Rio Maior, Polytechnic Institute of Santarem, Portugal
(***) University of Abertay Dundee, School of Social and Health Sciences, UK

Citation

Teques, P., Serpa, S., Rosado, A., Calmeiro, L. (2015). Predictors of parental involvement activities in sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 46(3), 187-209. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2015.46.187

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the utility of a theoretical model to predict parental involvement activities in children’s sport. Participants included 486 parents of young athletes of various sports, subdivided in two studies (n1 = 206, n2 = 280). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) conducted in Study 1 supported the proposed measurement model. All factors also show reliability, convergent and discriminant validity. In the Study 2, a structural equation model demonstrated that the parental role beliefs, parental self-efficacy, perceptions of child invitations, selfperceived time and energy, and knowledge and skills predicted parents’ home-based involvement. Perceptions of coach invitations were a significant negative predictor. These same constructs, with the exception of perceptions of knowledge and skills and perceptions of coach invitations, predicted parents’ club-based involvement. Multi-group analysis demonstrated the invariance of the model. Findings suggest that this model offers a useful framework to understand parents’ home and clubbased involvement.

Keywords: Measurement invariance, Parental beliefs, Self-Efficacy, Structural equation model, Youth sport