Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q) Test

Coaches can use this assessment to reflect on their relationships with athletes and the qualities they perceive in those interactions. The Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q) Test gives a structured profile of perceived trust, emotional connection, cooperation, and commitment. This coach-athlete relationship profile can highlight strengths to preserve and topics that may benefit from a thoughtful conversation.

What This Assessment Explores

The questionnaire is for coaches reflecting on relationships with athletes. It asks them to consider perceived trust, respect, openness, responsiveness, effort, and training's emotional tone. A coach-athlete relationship assessment can highlight strengths and topics for conversation.

Items about closeness, work, effort, friendliness, and contribution ask respondents to rate the interaction as perceived. The dimensions connect these perceptions with relationship quality.

The three displayed dimensions are:

• Complementarity (4-28) measures sensitive, congruent interaction and cooperation: Low complementarity (4-21) suggests difficulty working together; Moderate complementarity (22-22) is the middle band; High complementarity (23-28) indicates harmonious role distribution.
• Closeness (4-28) measures perceived trust and emotional connection: Low closeness (4-21) suggests distance; High closeness (22-28) indicates open, supportive interaction.
• Commitment (3-21) measures the coach's confidence in effective work and commitment to shared training: Low dedication (3-13) suggests reduced motivation; High dedication (14-21) indicates responsibility.

Methodology and Scientific Basis

Each item is a first-person statement rated on a seven-point agreement scale from strong disagreement to strong agreement. It captures certainty about relationship experiences rather than assigning a personality type.

Responses are summarized across the three displayed dimensions within their respective ranges. Each result is interpreted using its own definition and the questionnaire's displayed categories. These categories identify the position shown for that dimension, not a universal judgment about relationship quality.

CART-Q (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004) is the conceptual reference: a published measure of coach-athlete relationship quality. Jowett’s 3+1Cs model (2007) treats coaches and athletes as interdependent partners; co-orientation belongs to that framework but is not one of the three displayed scales. This coach-athlete relationship test is conceptually consistent with the published CART-Q, while version-specific standardization, norms, and reliability have not been established.

Yang and Jowett (2012) reported psychometric findings across seven countries for the source instrument’s cross-cultural relevance. That evidence concerns the source instrument, not this online version. Current circumstances, memory, social desirability, and self-awareness can shape self-report; interpret the result with wider relationship evidence.