# Psychometric Evaluation of the Performance Perfectionism Scale for Sport in the South Korean Context

## TL;DR

This study validated a sport-specific perfectionism scale for South Korean student-athletes, ensuring cultural appropriateness and reliable measurement.

## Contribution

The first culturally validated Performance Perfectionism Scale for Sport in the South Korean context.

## Key findings

- Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-factor structure of the PPS-S with acceptable model fit.
- The validated PPS-S provides a psychometrically sound tool for assessing perfectionism in South Korean sport psychology.
- The study highlights the limitations of general perfectionism measures in capturing culturally specific tendencies.

## Abstract

The purpose of this study was to validate the Performance Perfectionism Scale for Sport (PPS-S) for use in South Korean student-athletes, addressing the critical need for a culturally appropriate measure of perfectionism in sport. The PPS-S was translated following established cross-cultural research protocols, including forward-backward translation and cognitive interviews. Participants were 332 collegiate athletes (79.5% male, 20.5% female; proportionate to the national collegiate athletic population distribution) registered with the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee. Confirmatory factor analysis using robust maximum likelihood estimation confirmed the three-factor structure (self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented perfectionism) with acceptable model fit indices (χ2[49] = 163.54, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.906; RMSEA = 0.084, 90% CI [0.071, 0.097]; SRMR = 0.077). This validation represents a significant advancement in South Korean sport psychology, providing practitioners and researchers with the first psychometrically sound instrument for assessing perfectionism in sport and informing culturally tailored interventions. It addresses the limitations of previous research that relied on general perfectionism measures, which compromised domain and cultural validity by potentially misrepresenting athletes’ perfectionistic tendencies. Future research is needed to examine how this PPS-S performs distinctively compared to traditional general perfectionism measures and investigate its associations with various psychological outcomes.