Ariel Saulnier, Mia KurtzFavero, Izzy Coupland, Marley Mullan, Maya Hardowar, Nishi Patel, Tessa Griffin¹, Amy Latimer-Cheung

The purpose of this research is to examine the construct validity of a Quality Participation (QP) observational tool for assessing athletes’ experiences across diverse sport contexts and disability groups. Despite growing attention to inclusive sport environments, there remains a lack of validated approaches that integrate athlete experience with observational data to inform meaningful program evaluation and adaptation.The tool will be applied to 2-5 participants within two sport programs, including athletes of varying ages and disabilities. Sessions will be systematically observed, with coach-athlete interactions coded into six established QP building blocks (BBs) reflecting experiential aspects of participation, as well as coaches’ transformational leadership behaviours (TFLs). Each BB and TFL will receive an individual potency score based on the frequency and perceived impact of observed interactions, which will be combined into an overall session potency score for program comparison. Observations will occur in repeated 10-minute bouts across multiple weeks using two trained observers to support reliability.Construct validity will be assessed by comparing mean overall potency scores between contexts using independent t-tests. Findings will determine whether the tool meaningfully captures QP across sport contexts. Establishing validity will support future application of the tool for coach education and inclusive sport program evaluation across varied sport settings, age groups, and disability populations.