Cultural adaptation of the Assessment of Coach Emotions to the Spanish sports context (ACE-E)

Coaches’ emotional expression significantly influences sport environments and is mediated by the social and cultural construction of emotions. Therefore, this study aims to culturally adapt the Assessment of Coach Emotions for the Spanish sports context (ACE-E), provide evidence of its validity and reliability, and propose a suitable model for adapting observation instruments. The study involved coaches, sports psychologists, experts who study emotions, linguists, and translators. It was conducted in three phases. First, a literature review was conducted, and four coaches were interviewed. Secondly, the necessary linguistic and content changes were implemented. Finally, the ACE-E was tested by coding and analyzing 500 min of recordings of eight coaches’ performance and evaluated for reliability, usefulness, and feasibility. The results show that ACE-E receives the same support for validity and reliability as the original instrument in the English language, demonstrating the effectiveness of its cultural adaptation for assessing the emotional expression of Spanish coaches.