Fitness and Performance Testing in Sport - Benefits, Requirements and Results
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Top Contributors - Wanda van Niekerk and Jess Bell
Why Fitness and Performance Testing in Sport?[edit | edit source]
- Assess athletic talent
- Identify physical abilities
- Identify areas in need of improvement
- Goal setting
- Progress evaluation
- Indicates effectiveness of decisions related to athletes (Fukuda text book)
- Provides quality data that can inform decision-making processes (Fukuda)
Key Terminology[edit | edit source]
- Test = a procedure for assessing ability in a particular endeavour
- Field test = a test used to assess ability that is performed away from the laboratory and does not require extensive training or expensive equipment
- Measurement = the process of collecting test data[1]
- Evaluation = the process of analysing test results for the purpose of making decisions[1]
Benefits of Testing[edit | edit source]
The results from tests can be used to:
- Predict future performance
- Indicate strengths and weaknesses
- Measure improvement
- Enable the coach to assess the success of the training programme
- Place the athlete in an appropriate training group
- Motivate the athlete
- Break up and add variety to the training programme
- Satisfy the athlete's competitive urge out of season
- Guide the return to sport decision-making
- Testing demands the maximum effort of the athlete - useful at times as a training unit
Requirements of Testing[edit | edit source]
The selected test should measure the factors required to be tested. All tests should be:
- Specific
- designed to assess and athlete's fitness for the activity in question
- Validity
- the degree to which the test measures what it clams to measure
- this is the most important characteristic of testing
- Types of validity:
- Construct validity
- The ability of a test to represent the underlying construct (the theory developed to organise and explain some aspects of existing knowledge and observations)
- Face validity
- The appearance to the athlete and other observers that the test measures what it is purported to measure
- Content validity
- The assessment by experts that the testing covers all relevant subtopics or component abilities in appropriate proportions
- Criterion-referenced validity
- The extent to which test scores are associated with some other measure of the same ability
- Construct validity
- Reliability
- A measure of the degree of consistency or repeatability of a test
- Capable of consistent repetition
- Measurement error can arise from the following:
- Intra-subject (within subjects) variability
- The lack of consistent performance by the person tested
- Intra-rater (within raters) variability
- The consistency of scores by a given tester
- Inter-rater (between raters) reliability
- The consistency of scores across a group of raters
- Intra-subject (within subjects) variability
- Objectivity
- Produce a consistent result irrespective of the tester
- Other considerations
- Measure one factor only??
- Tests should not require any technical competence on the part of the athlete (unless it is being used to assess technique)
- Care should be taken to make sure that the athlete understands precisely what is required of him/her, what is being measured and why
- Test procedures should be strictly standardised in terms of administration, organisation and environmental conditions
- Repeatability
Resources[edit | edit source]
- bulleted list
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- numbered list
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References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 D'Isanto T, D'Elia F, Raiola G, Altavilla G. Assessment of sport performance: Theoretical aspects and practical indications. Sport Mont. 2019;17(1):79-82.