French translation of the Flow State Scale-2: Factor structure, cross-cultural invariance, and associations with goal attainment

Objectives: The goal of this paper was to assess the cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the French and English versions of the Flow State Scale-2 (FSS-2) [Jackson, S. A., & Eklund, R. C. (2002). Assessing flow in physical activity: The Flow State Scale-2 and Dispositional Flow State Scale-2. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 24, 133-115] and to assess the relationships between athletes' flow state and perceived goal attainment. Design: Cross-sectional with self-reported questionnaires. Method: Two samples of sport participants completed the FSS-2 immediately after an event and within a few days after the event, respectively. Data were analyzed with reliability and confirmatory factor analyses as well as with correlational and regression analyses. Results: Results of confirmatory factor analyses on the French FSS-2 replicated the factor structure of the original FSS-2 with the first-order 9-factor and the hierarchical models both displaying adequate level of goodness-of-fit. Results of multi-sample analyses indicated that most parameters of the FSS-2 were invariant across languages. As expected, flow state correlated significantly with goal attainment during a sport competition. The relationship between flow and goal attainment was invariant across levels of competition. Conclusions: This study provided support for the factor structure of the French version of the FSS-2 and for the invariance of the flow construct across languages. Flow state is significantly associated with goal attainment and the relationship is equivalent across athletes' levels of competition. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.