Effect of rater expertise on subjective agility assessment

Abstract

Agility performance is often quantified using completion time, which provides little information about which factors contribute to or limit an individual’s performance. The objective of this study was to determine how novices and experts working in athletic, clinical, and military environments qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate agility performance. Formalizing expert definitions will inform the development of objective biomechanical metrics, which have the potential to inform strategy development for training and rehabilitation. Thirty-three participants completed a survey which involved scoring 16 athletes on a 7 point Likert scale of not agile to agile. The spread of the scores indicated that even within groups, participants had different opinions about which aspects of technique contributed to high performance. Participant responses were used to link several terms to agility technique. Future work includes quantitatively defining and evaluating these terms.