UNCERTAINTY AND RESPONSE STYLE IN LATENT TRAIT MODELS TO ASSESS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF ELITE SWIMMERS

Emotional intelligence is a key factor for success in sporting competitions, arousing great interest in the psychological assessment of athletes. When the evaluation relies on Likert-type psychometric scales, individuals could tend to respond to items regardless of their content, compromising the measurement process. In this vein, the present contribution aims to address measurement issues regarding uncertainty and response style during the assessment of emotional intelligence of elite swimmers by exploiting latent trait models. Results provide evidence in favor of models accounting for response behavior.