Reliability of an interactive sport-specific choice reaction time device

Abstract

Methods Twelve recreationally trained males participated in Part a, which consisted of two visits (mean +/SD, 3.7 +/1.3 days); a familiarization testing day (V1a), followed by a subsequent testing day (V1b), and was conducted over a three week investigation period (28 +/5 yr, 178 +/9 cm, 79.15 +/15.7 kg, 17.5 +/6.6 % body fat). Part a was composed of nine choice reaction time testing protocols, including single step audio (CRA); single step visual (CRV); 15/30s single tower unidirectional [CRS(15s) (30s)]; 15/30s two tower lateral-directional [CRL(15s), (30s)]; 15/30s three tower multi-directional [CRM (15s), (30s)]; and a three tower, 2-minute stick hit test (stick hits). Seventeen recreationally trained males participated in Part b, which consisted of two visits (4.9 +/1.9 days) following a familiarization day (V1b and V2b), and was conducted over a two week investigational period (21.5 +/4.7 y, 181.1 +/6.1 cm, 85.2 +/17 kg, 14.5 +/11 % body fat). Part b comprised the same choice reaction time testing protocols as Part a. Part c consisted of a pooled mean of 62 tests taken from Part a and Part b, which examined data within choice reaction testing days between V1a, V2a, V1b, and V2b, except the 2-minute Stick Hits data. Results Mean (+/SD) time (seconds) values for Part a, Part b, and Part c were 0.87, 0.91 and 0.86 for Day/Trial 1 respectively, and 0.81, 0.89, and 0.85 for Day/Trial 2 which resulted in no significant differences from Day/Trial 1 to Day/Trial 2 for Part a, b, and c (p > 0.05). However, all times between testing days/trials decreased (a: -0.071 sec, b: -0.021 sec, c: -0.010). Differences in days from Part b (-0.02 sec) and Trials for Part c (-0.01 sec) resulted in similar findings, suggesting a familiarization session between testing days may result in similar reliability to that of within-day trials (p = 1.00). Two testing batteries showed a significant decrease in time between Day 1 and Day 2 after familiarization: CRL15 (Mean difference = -0.07, p = 0.036) and CRM30 (Mean difference = -0.05, p = 0.022).