Individual coaching
Use the profile to identify strengths, explore recurring challenges and agree priorities that fit the athlete’s sport, role and goals.
Coaches, sport psychologists and organisations
Sport Psychology Assessment for Coaches
Use the SPQ20 with athletes to structure feedback, choose mental-skills development priorities and plan practical coaching work.
A clearer starting point for individual development
The SPQ20 brings an athlete's self-reported mental approach into a structured coaching conversation. Explore the report alongside sporting context, observations and recent experiences, then agree one or two useful priorities.
Accounts, ordering and assessment administration are provided through MySkillsProfile.
From a broad profile to focused coaching
The SPQ20 explores 20 dimensions across Achievement and Competitiveness, Confidence and Resilience, Interaction and Sportsmanship, and Power and Aggressiveness. This breadth gives you several routes into a development conversation, from training discipline and goal setting to handling pressure, communicating with teammates and responding to setbacks.
Look at combinations of findings rather than one score in isolation. Strong achievement drive, for example, can be explored alongside fear of failure and pressure management. The aim is to understand how the athlete experiences those patterns and choose a useful next step.
Teams and programmes
Use individual feedback to inform shared workshops on topics such as communication, preparation and pressure management. Agree any sharing of results in advance and avoid labelling or ranking athletes.
Teaching and practitioner development
Use the manual and sample report to explore assessment interpretation, feedback skills and the connection between psychological concepts and sporting situations.
What the report gives you
The feedback report offers several ways to make the results accessible and useful:
- Executive summary: an introduction to the athlete’s profile and key themes for discussion.
- Profile matrices: visual ways to explore combinations of characteristics and the athlete’s reported approach.
- Factor and scale scorecards: a more detailed view of the four broad areas and individual dimensions.
- Narrative feedback and development guidance: explanations and ideas to connect with the athlete’s own experience.
A practical coaching process
- Agree the purpose. Explain what you want to explore, how the feedback will support development and who will receive the report.
- Prepare the athlete. Encourage honest answers about their usual approach. Explain that the questionnaire is not an examination with right and wrong answers.
- Arrange the assessment. Purchase assessments through your professional account and follow the platform instructions to invite athletes.
- Prepare your feedback session. Read the complete report, note relevant patterns and prepare open questions. You can use the AI guide below to help organise this work.
- Explore the results together. Ask which findings fit, which need context and what recent training or competition examples help explain them.
- Agree one or two actions. Choose a routine or behaviour to practise, specify when it will be used and decide what progress would look like.
- Review and adjust. Discuss what the athlete tried, what you observed and what helped. Judge progress through behaviour and sporting experience as well as reflection on the profile.
AI for coaching preparation and reflection
Use ChatGPT to take the feedback further
AI can help you turn a detailed report into a clearer session agenda, thoughtful questions and a draft development plan. The SportsConfidence ChatGPT analysis guide provides a practical starting point for athletes, coaches and sport psychologists.
Before the session
Ask AI to organise report themes, suggest open questions and identify points that need more sporting context. Check each suggestion against the report before using it.
After the conversation
Use the priorities agreed with the athlete to draft a short plan with practice routines, review questions and observable signs of progress.
Between sessions
Prepare reflection prompts or a simple practice log to help the athlete describe what they tried and what happened. Bring those observations into your next conversation.
A prompt for preparing feedback
Using the complete SPQ20 report and its scale definitions, help me prepare a coaching conversation for an athlete in [sport and role]. Their current goal is [goal]. Suggest three themes to explore and open questions for each. Distinguish direct report findings from tentative interpretations, identify missing context and avoid predictions about performance.
A prompt for a development plan
The athlete and I have agreed to work on [priority]. Help us draft a two-week practice plan suited to [training schedule]. Suggest a small number of actions, observable signs of progress and questions for our review. Treat this as a draft for us to adapt.
Before sharing a report, obtain the athlete’s permission, follow your organisation’s requirements, remove unnecessary identifying information and review the AI service’s privacy settings. Retain the scale definitions and feedback needed for accurate interpretation. AI can misread scores or invent connections, so verify its output and keep professional judgement and the athlete’s perspective central. SportsConfidence does not automatically send assessment results to ChatGPT.
Common reasons athletes seek sport psychology support
Competition nerves, confidence, concentration, motivation and communication are familiar areas of sport psychology work. The examples below show how an SPQ20 profile can help you explore these concerns and agree practical development work.
These are illustrative situations, not client case studies. Relevant scales provide starting points for discussion; a score does not establish the cause of a difficulty.
“I perform well in training, but nerves take over in competition.”
Explore: when the pressure builds, what the athlete notices and how their preparation changes. Discuss Managing Pressure, Fear of Failure, Emotions and Self-Talk in the context of a recent event.
Possible next step: agree a short preparation routine with a breathing pause, a useful cue and a focus on the first controllable task. Rehearse it in training situations that introduce pressure.
“A few poor results have knocked my confidence.”
Explore: how the athlete explains setbacks and what evidence they use to judge their ability. Self-Efficacy, Fear of Failure and Self-Talk can help frame the conversation.
Possible next step: choose achievable process goals and keep a brief record of successful actions, learning and recovery after mistakes. Review those observations together.
“One mistake stays in my head for the rest of the game.”
Explore: what captures the athlete’s attention, how they respond emotionally and when they regain focus. Discuss Flow, Emotions, Self-Talk and Managing Pressure without treating Flow as a direct measure of concentration.
Possible next step: practise a reset sequence: acknowledge the mistake, use a brief cue and return attention to the next task. Observe its use in challenging drills.
“I’m struggling to stay motivated or stick to my training.”
Explore: what matters to the athlete, whether goals feel meaningful and what makes the plan difficult to follow. Achievement, Goal Setting and Conscientiousness offer useful discussion points.
Possible next step: agree a realistic weekly goal, break it into manageable actions and identify how the coach can support follow-through. Explore fatigue, workload and circumstances as well as motivation.
“I’m finding it difficult to communicate with my coach or teammates.”
Explore: a specific interaction, each person’s expectations and how feedback is given and received. Empathy, Relationships and Adaptability can support reflection.
Possible next step: prepare a constructive conversation, practise asking for clarification and agree how feedback will be handled. Consider the wider team environment alongside the athlete’s profile.
“I want a more consistent routine before important events.”
Explore: the athlete’s current preparation and which habits help them feel ready. Visualization, Goal Setting, Self-Talk and Managing Pressure provide routes into a practical discussion.
Possible next step: build and rehearse a simple routine using realistic imagery, clear process goals and personal cues. Review what the athlete finds useful and adapt it to the event.
How AI can help with these situations
Use ChatGPT to draft open questions for the chosen situation, organise the athlete’s observations or turn an agreed priority into a practice log. Provide the relevant report definitions and sporting context, ask it to separate findings from suggestions, and check the output before using it. The ChatGPT analysis guide offers a fuller process.
For example: “We are exploring competition nerves. Using the report definitions and context provided, suggest five open questions and a simple log for recording preparation, attention and the athlete’s experience. Do not infer causes from scores or diagnose a condition.”
Persistent distress, injury-related concerns or difficulties beyond performance development may require support from an appropriately qualified professional. The SPQ20 can inform a development conversation but does not replace clinical assessment or rehabilitation advice.
Further reading: Association for Applied Sport Psychology: sport and performance psychology ↗.
Professional pricing and access
Volume prices and purchasing options are shown on the MySkillsProfile ordering page. Select Sport Personality Questionnaire (SPQ20) when ordering. Existing customers should sign in to their account to order more.
For university teaching, larger programmes or questions about suitability, contact SportsConfidence.
Use reports responsibly
Discuss results with the athlete, keep feedback constructive and agree appropriate sharing of reports. Do not use a profile to diagnose a mental-health condition or make a selection decision in isolation. Consider the published reference population and the demands of your sport.
AI supports preparation and reflection; it does not rescore or validate the assessment, diagnose conditions or replace qualified professional support. A change in questionnaire scores alone is not proof of improved sporting performance.