Abstract
The aim of this study was to develop a culturally relevant scale of mental toughness
for Pakistani cricketers with sound psychometric properties. In order to explore the
phenomenology of mental toughness 20 national and international male cricketers
were interviewed individually and their responses were recorded in verbatim. All
the responses were collated, duplicate and vague items were discarded. The
remaining items were transformed into a 4-point likert scale to assess the intensity
of each item and altogether 48 items comprised the Cricket Mental Toughness Scale
(CMTS). Further, 149 male cricketers with the age range of 16-28 years (M=18.79,
SD=3.06) selected through purposive sampling, were given the CMTS final 48 items
list, along with the Cricket Mental Toughness Inventory (CMTI, Gucciardi & Gordon,
2009) for concurrent validity. For discriminant validity the Sports Interference Scale
(Donohue, Silver, Dickens, Covassin, & Lancer, 2007) and a demographic performa
were also included. Exploratory factor analysis yielded 4 factors namely
“Resilience”, “Preparation”, “Emotional Stability” and “Self Belief”. The scale was
found to have highly internally consistent (α=.92), and split half reliability r=.91with
moderate levels of concurrent and discrimanant validity. Results were further
discussed in cross cultural context by highlighting its implication for Pakistani
cricketers.
