Dr Jenn Cumming

The Dance Imagery Questionnaire (DIQ; Nordin & Cumming, 2006) is a 16-item questionnaire to measure four different types of dancers’ imagery:

• Technique imagery
• Role and movement quality imagery
• Mastery imagery
• Goal imagery.

It has good psychometric properties, internal reliability, test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, predictive validity, and is able to distinguish between groups of dancers.

The DIQ was recently translated to Chinese by Liu, Lu, and Chou (2015), with this version also shown to be valid and reliable for use with dancers.

Papers published that have used the DIQ:

Abraham, A., Gose, R., Schindler, R., Nelson, B. H., & Hackney, M. E. (2019). Dynamic neuro-cognitive imagery (DNITM) improves developpé performance, kinematics, and mental imagery ability in university-level dance students. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 382. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00382

Liu, Y., Lu, F. J., & Chou, H. (2015). Validity and reliability of Chinese Version of Dance Imagery Questionnaire. Sport & Exercise Research, 17, 189-202. doi: 10.5297/ser.1702.006

Nordin, S. M. & Cumming, J. (2006). Measuring the Content of Dancer’s Images: Development of the Dance Imagery Questionnaire (DIQ). Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, 10, 85-98.

Nordin, S. M., & Cumming, J. (2008). Comparison of dancers and aesthetic sport athletes’ imagery use. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20, 1-17.

Nordin-Bates, S. M., Cumming, J., Aways, D., & Sharp, L. (2011). Imaging yourself dancing to perfection? Cognitive correlates of perfectionism among ballet and contemporary dancers. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 5, 58-67.

Nordin-Bates, S. M., Walker, I. J., Baker, J., Garner, J., Hardy, C., Irvine, S., Jola, C., Laws, H., & Blevins, P. (2011). Injury, imagery, and self-esteem in dance: Healthy minds in injured bodies? Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, 15, 76-85.

* If you have used the DIQ and would like to add your citation to this list, please email J.Cumming@Bham.ac.uk.