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Validation and measurement invariance of the Chinese version of the athlete burnout questionnaire for adolescent table tennis athletes

psychiatry-and-psychology
mental-health
sports-medicine

Abstract

Background: Athlete burnout is a key factor affecting performance in competitive sports. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of validated instruments to assess burnout levels among adolescent athletes in the Chinese context. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ-C) in this group, with specific attention to its measurement invariance across athletes of different competitive levels.

Methods: Participants were 656 adolescent table tennis players, with an age of 17.1 years (SD = 0.71). Of these, 55.6% were male. The factorial structure and measurement invariance across competitive levels were examined using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and multi-group CFA (MGCFA) in Mplus 8.0 .

Results: The ABQ-C demonstrated satisfactory fit indices for both the three-factor and second-order models (χ²/df = 2.69, comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.97, Tucker- Lewis index [TLI] = 0.97, standardised root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.026, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.05, 90% CI = 0.05, 0.06), all of which met established thresholds. Furthermore, measurement invariance was supported across high- and low-performance athletes, as changes in fit indices across configural, metric, and strict invariance models were minimal (∆CFI ≤ 0.01, ∆TLI ≤ 0.01, ∆RMSEA ≤ 0.015) .

Conclusion: The findings support the validity and reliability of the ABQ-C for measuring athlete burnout in Chinese adolescent table tennis players. This study thus fills an important cross-cultural validation gap and offers a robust tool for future research and applied work in sports psychology with this population.

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