Psychometric properties and standardization of the shortened latvian personality inventory (LPI-v3s) in athlete sample: Implications for evidence-based assessment

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Personality traits are relevant to sport participation and athlete development. Many personality measures used in sport lack systematic psychometric evaluation within athletic populations and are rarely accompanied by population-appropriate normative references. The present research comprised two interlinked studies aimed at empirically examining and refining a shortened version of the Latvian Personality Inventory (LPI-v3s) for use in athlete samples, and at exploring associations between personality traits and sport achievement status. METHODS: A total of 925 athletes (aged 15-45 years) representing 84 sports participated in the study. Following data screening, two subsamples were formed: Study 1 (n = 436) for psychometric evaluation and norm development, and Study 2 (n = 753) for exploratory criterion-related analyses. In Study 1, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, and measurement invariance across gender was examined using multigroup CFA. Continuous regression-based norming procedures were applied to derive age- and gender-specific T-scores. In Study 2, hierarchical binary logistic regression was used to explore associations between personality traits and competitive status (elite/pre-elite vs. non-elite). RESULTS: The resulting 53-item LPI-v3s demonstrated an interpretable five-factor structure comprising 14 trait scales, acceptable to good internal consistency (α = 0.72-0.88), and configural, metric, and scalar invariance across gender groups. Exploratory hierarchical binary logistic regression analyses indicated that selected trait-level variables (most notably Anxious Insecurity, Sociability and Orderliness) showed small-to-moderate associations with competitive status, with modest overall classification performance (AUC = 0.64). CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the internal consistency and measurement adequacy of the LPI-v3s within this athlete sample and underscore the importance of contextualized, cautious interpretation of personality scores in sport-related research. Given the provisional nature of the factorial structure and the modest predictive performance observed in Study 2, the LPI-v3s may be useful for research and exploratory assessment contexts involving Latvian-speaking athletes, but should not be used as a diagnostic, selection, or talent-identification tool.