Eastern Canadian Sport and Exercise Psychology Symposium
March 2010, Montreal, QC, Canada
Designing the DHAQ: Construction and Validation of the Developmental History of Athletes Questionnaire
Melissa Hopwood 1,2, Joseph Baker 1 , Clare MacMahon 2 & Damian Farrow 2,3
1. York University, Toronto, Canada
2. Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
3. Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia
Knowledge of the training requirements and environmental factors associated with
expert sports performance is essential for the design of effective sport programs
and the creation of nurturing practice environments. Current research in this area
is dominated by a) the use of qualitative analysis techniques characterized by small
samples of homogenous participants, and b) the use of basic training history questionnaires
that do not account for the contribution of contextual factors to the development
of expertise. The Developmental History of Athletes Questionnaire (DHAQ) was designed
for collection of detailed developmental histories from larger samples of athletes
than have previously been investigated. To establish the validity and reliability
of the questionnaire, fifteen Australian national level athletes completed the DHAQ
on two occasions and participated in a semi-
To cite this presentation:
Hopwood, M., Baker, J., MacMahon, C., & Farrow, D. (2010, March). Designing the DHAQ: Construction and validation of the Developmental History of Athletes Questionnaire. Eastern Canadian Sport & Exercise Psychology Symposium, Montreal, Canada.
The Pathways to the Podium Research Project
Publications and Presentations
An investigation of the development of sport expertise
Pathways to the Podium Research Project