Applied sport psychology is a field that is still in search of a definition. This article examines some of the ethical issues involved in the provision of psychological services to athletes and coaches. Observations are made regarding the types of services that sport psychologists are offering. The need for the development of applied internship experiences is emphasized.
Over the past 15 years the Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) has become increasingly popular in the sport psychology area. More recently, investigators factor-analyzing the six TAIS attentional scales and the information processing scale have raised serious questions about the independence of these measures. Specifically, they have suggested that the six attentional scales measured by the TAIS can be collapsed into two scales, one reflecting scanning (BET, BIT, INFP) and one reflecting the focusing of attention (NAR, OET, OIT). All of the studies reported on can be shown to have methodological flaws and to have drawn inappropriate conclusions from their analyses. Evidence is provided in the paper demonstrating the independence of the TAIS scales. Suggestions are made for avoiding the methodological and interpretive problems that have permeated the literature.
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