Focus area: Athletic coping skills

Overview: The Athletic Coping Skills Inventory 28 (ACSI-28) is a highly validated assessment that measures an athlete’s psychological coping skills in seven key areas. Developed by Smith et al. (1995), the ACSI-28 helps guide athletes who are interested in gaining more understanding and clarity around these mental skills that can impact performance. 

Total number of items: Twenty eight

Administration: Self-report

Standardized cadence: Weekly

Estimated completion time: Eight to ten minutes

Supported subscales: The ACSI-28 measures seven different psychological aspects of performance:

Coping with Adversity
Coachability
Concentration
Confidence and Achievement Motivation
Goal Setting and Mental Preparation
Peaking under Pressure
Freedom from Worry 

Age range: 16+

Scoring and interpretation: A score for each subscale can range from 0 to 12, while the summation of all the scores for each skill creates a value ranging from 0 to 84 called the Personal Coping Resource (composite score). Higher scores are indicative of the ability to cope with the demands of the sport and greater psychological skills or constructs

Reliability/Validity:  Cronbach’s alpha for ACSI-28 subscales range from 0.64 to 0.81. The factorial validity of the ACSI-28 was established as 7 of its subscales conformed to the underlying factor structure for both male and female athletes. Correlation of ACSI-28 with measures of coping skills and self-efficacy further confirmed its convergent and discriminant validity.

Additional information: The ACSI-28 generates a baseline measure of psychological skills within sport for each individual, allowing them to see their areas of strength as well as areas that could be further developed. This provides an initial measure that athletes may compare and contrast with future measures to see how his/her performance has altered throughout time.