Development, reliability and performance level discriminative validity of a new badminton-specific reactive agility test

Abstract

Purpose: The main aim of this study was to develop a reliable and ecologically valid badminton-specific reactive agility test
that would provide researchers and practitioners with an easy-to-use instrument to assess both the motor and cognitive
aspects of agility performance.
Methods: Sample of N=41 young badminton players (age 15.72 ± 1.11 yrs) from different performance levels (High (N1=12),
Average (N2=14), Low (N3=15) was subjected to the newly developed badminton-specific reactive agility test (BSARAT) and
four tests that had previously proven to be reliable and valid in badminton practice.
Results: The newly constructed badminton-specific “Reactive Agility Test” (BSARAT) showed a very high internal consistency
between trials (Cronbach’s alpha α= .97) and a high repeatability of the results (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient ICC=
.877). The factor analysis showed high correlation with the same latent dimension extracted from established generic
and badminton-specific agility tests (factor structure coefficient = -.94), clearly indicating adequate construct validity.
Furthermore, the between-subjects ANOVA revealed successful main effect for performance level (significance P< .001;
(partial) eta squared (ηp2= .29). The post-hoc analysis with Bonferroni correction showed significant pairwise differences
between the groups of High and Low performance levels, as was the case for all tests in the test battery.
Conclusions: To summarise, the BSARAT is a reliable, ecologically valid and easy-to-use badminton-specific test that has the
potential to become a more feasible and practical alternative to existing reactive agility tests.