The refficacy scale: A premilinary investigation to develop a referee efficacy scale

Abstract

Sport officiating is a difficult job. One social-cognitive variable that may influence the effective performance of a sports official is his/her self-efficacy beliefs. Based on self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977, 1997), highly confident (i.e., high self-efficacy) referees should be more accurate in their decisions, more effective in their performance, more committed to their profession, and have more respect from coaches, administrators, and other officials. In this study, we defined referee efficacy (refficacy) as the extent to which referees believe they have the capacity to perform successfully in their job, and began a preliminary investigation to develop an instrument to measure the concept. A total of 1,988 referees from the U.S. and Spain and from a variety of different sports completed 38 items relating to referee efficacy. Approximately 50% of the sample was randomly chosen to conduct an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Preliminary results of the EFA indicated that a single factor structure might be most appropriate for the Refficacy Scale (ReffS). All items were retained and the remaining sample was used to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results from the CFA indicated a moderate model fit (CFI = .835; NNGI = .825; RMSEA = .044) on the one-factor model where all items loaded significantly (p<.5) on the factor. Further research is required to increase and improve the validity of this scale.