French translation of the Flow State Scale-2: Factor structure, cross-cultural invariance, and associations with goal attainment

Jean Fournier (1) , Patrick Gaudreau (2) , Pascale Demontrond-Behr (1) , Jérôme Visioli (3) , Jacques Forest (4) , Sue Jackson (5)

1 INSEP - Institut national du sport, de l'expertise et de la performance
2 University of Ottawa [Ottawa]
3 UR2 UFRAPS - Université de Rennes 2 - UFR Activités physiques et sportives
4 UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal
5 University of Queensland [Brisbane]

Objectives: The goal of this paper was to assess the cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the French and English versions of the Flow State Scale-2 (FSS-2) [Jackson, S. A., & Eklund, R. C. (2002). Assessing flow in physical activity: The Flow State Scale-2 and Dispositional Flow State Scale-2. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 24, 133–115] and to assess the relationships between athletes' flow state and perceived goal attainment. Design: Cross-sectional with self-reported questionnaires. Method: Two samples of sport participants completed the FSS-2 immediately after an event and within a few days after the event, respectively. Data were analyzed with reliability and confirmatory factor analyses as well as with correlational and regression analyses. Results: Results of confirmatory factor analyses on the French FSS-2 replicated the factor structure of the original FSS-2 with the first-order 9-factor and the hierarchical models both displaying adequate level of goodness-of-fit. Results of multi-sample analyses indicated that most parameters of the FSS-2 were invariant across languages. As expected, flow state correlated significantly with goal attainment during a sport competition. The relationship between flow and goal attainment was invariant across levels of competition. Conclusions: This study provided support for the factor structure of the French version of the FSS-2 and for the invariance of the flow construct across languages. Flow state is significantly associated with goal attainment and the relationship is equivalent across athletes' levels of competition.

Mots clés: Factor analysis; Cross-cultural validity; Sport; Goal attainment; Flow state; Positive psychology; Performance

Domaines: Sciences cognitives du sport

Jean Fournier, Patrick Gaudreau, Pascale Demontrond-Behr, Jérôme Visioli, Jacques Forest, et al.. French translation of the Flow State Scale-2: Factor structure, cross-cultural invariance, and associations with goal attainment. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2007, 8 (6), pp.897-916. ⟨10.1016/j.psychsport.2006.07.007⟩. ⟨hal-01697014⟩