Cross-cultural validation of the sports performance questionnaire in Chinese adolescent football players: a confirmatory factor analysis study

Ying Shuai, Garry Kuan, Yee Cheng Kueh, S W Wang, Yan Sun

Background The assessment of sports performance in youth football requires culturally appropriate and psychometrically sound instruments. The Sports Performance Questionnaire (SPQ) was developed to evaluate performance-related characteristics in youth football players, but its cross-cultural validity in Chinese contexts remains unexplored. Objective This study aimed to validate the Chinese adaptation of the Sports Performance Questionnaire (SPQ-C) among adolescent football players and examine its factorial structure, reliability, and validity. Methods A cross-sectional validation study was conducted with 450 adolescent football players (52.2% male, mean age = 12.94 ± 0.78 years) from 24 schools across urban areas of Shandong Province, China. The SPQ-C was administered as a coach-rating instrument, consistent with the format of the original SPQ. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the original two-factor structure and a unidimensional model. Reliability and validity were assessed using established psychometric criteria. Results The original two-factor model showed broadly adequate global fit; however, it was not retained because the correlation between the Persistence and Skill factors was extremely high (r = 0.996), indicating empirical indistinguishability and a lack of discriminant validity. The unidimensional model was therefore retained as the final SPQ-C structure. The final model showed adequate global fit, although the RMSEA value was slightly above the stringent good-fit threshold. The SPQ-C demonstrated excellent internal consistency ( α = 0.932), satisfactory convergent validity (AVE = 0.559, CR = 0.932), and high preliminary test–retest reliability in a single-school subsample (ICC = 0.935). Standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.609 to 0.841. Conclusion The SPQ-C provides preliminary evidence of reliability and validity as a unidimensional coach-rated instrument for assessing performance-related characteristics in Chinese adolescent football players from urban areas of Shandong Province. The findings suggest that, in the present Chinese coach-rating context, persistence- and skill-related indicators were not empirically separable. Further validation is needed in more geographically diverse samples and with larger multi-school test–retest subsamples.