The development of a test of reactive agility for netball: a new methodology.
The purpose of this study was to present a new methodology for the measurement of agility for netball that is considered more ecologically valid than previous agility tests. Specifically, the agility performance of highly-skilled (n = 12), moderately-skilled (n = 12) and lesser-skilled players (n = 8) when responding to a life-size, interactive video display of a netball player initiating a pass was compared to a traditional, pre-planned agility movement where no external stimulus was present. The total movement times and decision times of the players were the primary dependent measures of interest. A second purpose of the research was to determine the test-retest reliability of the testing approach. Results revealed significant differences existed between the 2 test conditions demonstrating that they were measuring different types of agility. The highly-skilled group was significantly faster in both the reactive and planned test conditions relative to the lesser-skilled group, while the moderately-skilled group was significantly faster than the lesser-skilled group in the reactive test condition. The decision time component within the reactive test condition revealed that the highly-skilled players made significantly faster decisions than the lesser-skilled players. It is reasoned that it is this decision-making component of reactive agility that contributes to the significant differences between the two test conditions. The testing approach was shown to have good test-retest reliability with an intra-class correlation of r = .83.
Farrow
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Athlete and Coach Services, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia.
Young
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Bruce
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001490:Basketball / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012420:Running / Q000502:physiology; D013178:Sports Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis