Reassessment of the Reliability and Factor Structure for the Athletes' Retirement Decision Inventory’: Analysis in a Sample of Iranian athletes

Background & Purpose: The aims of the present investigation were to examine construct validity and reliability for a Persian version of Athletes’ Retirement Decision Inventory (P-ARDI). The original version of the questionnaire was developed by Fernandez, Stephan, ‎&‎ Fouquereau (2006) based on the push, pull, anti-push, and anti-pull theoretical framework. Methodology: A sample of 536 Iranian athletes (313 male, 223 female) participating in a variety of competitive sports (mean age = 24.93±3.80 years) completed the inventory. Factorial validity was examined by confirmatory factor analysis. Results: Results revealed a good-fitting model of the corrected final factor structure for the total sample, both genders and for individual vs. team sport athletes. The results confirmed the four-factor structure of P-ARDI. The results for internal consistency and temporal stability were confirmed the reliability of the questionnaire. Conclusion: Given these favorable psychometric properties, the P-ARDI can be used to accurately assess the reasons for sport retirement decision.