Assessing the Validity and Reliability of the Bull’s Mental Skills Questionnaire (BMSQ) in Malaysian Gifted Students

Abstract

The development of mental skills contributes significantly to the well-being and performance outcomes of gifted students. Despite its widespread application in sport psychology research, the Bull’s Mental Skills Questionnaire (BMSQ) lacks sufficient empirical validation in terms of validity and reliability within the Malaysian gifted student population. Thus, the present study was conducted to investigate the validity and reliability of the BMSQ within this population. A sample of 214 gifted students, aged 12 until 17 years, was included in this study. Descriptive analysis indicated moderate to high levels across the seven mental skill domains, with Mental Preparation and imagery ability recording the highest mean scores. Normality assumptions were satisfied, with skewness and kurtosis values within ±1. The Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy (0.840) and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (χ² = 2775.911, p < .001) confirmed the suitability of the data for factor analysis. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation extracted seven components explaining 65.82% of the total variance, consistent with the theoretical model proposed by Bull et al. (1996). The findings from the reliability analysis reflected a good level of reliability between 0.716 and 0.871, with an overall reliability of 0.859. These findings support the validity and reliability of the BMSQ in assessing multidimensional mental skills among gifted students and highlight its potential use in developing psychological interventions to strengthen mental skills within educational settings..