The Validation of the Defensive Reactive Agility Test in Top-Level Volleyball Male Players: A New Approach to Evaluating Slide Speed Using Witty SEM

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Congratulations on your valuable work. The objective of this study was to validate a defensive reactive agility test.

Your research addresses a critical gap in the assessment of agility in volleyball, where existing tests primarily focus on forward movements associated with offensive actions. The Defensive Reactive Agility Test (DRAT) you developed offers a comprehensive tool for evaluating the essential backward movements required for effective defensive maneuvers.

The findings of your study provide strong evidence supporting the validity and reliability of the DRAT. The test demonstrated excellent overall quality, with particularly high reliability for total time and consistent agreement across all variables. The differentiated results between the left-side, right-side, and backward slides highlight the nuanced nature of defensive agility and the effectiveness of the DRAT in capturing these distinctions.

Your work has significant implications for both research and practice in volleyball. By providing a validated tool for measuring defensive reactive agility, you have opened up new avenues for investigating the factors that contribute to successful defensive performance. Additionally, the DRAT can be used by coaches and trainers to identify and address individual weaknesses in defensive agility, leading to improved player performance and reduced injury risk.

Overall, your study makes a significant contribution to the field of volleyball performance assessment. The DRAT is a valuable tool that will undoubtedly be used by researchers and practitioners alike to advance our understanding and improve the development of defensive agility in volleyball players.

Thank you for your dedication to this important area of research.

However, to improve your work, let me suggest some details:

Suggestions for Improving the Paper:

Introduction:

• Reorganize the flow of ideas: The introduction currently presents a brief definition of agility, followed by several paragraphs that discuss the importance of agility in volleyball. This back-and-forth approach can make the introduction less cohesive. Consider restructuring the introduction to provide a more linear progression of ideas.

• Address terminology inconsistency: In line 32, the term "invasive" should be changed to "non invasive" to accurately describe volleyball as a non-contact sport. 

• Include references for supporting claims: In line 56, where the paper highlights the importance of defensive agility in various sports, provide citations for each sport mentioned. 

• What was the inclusion criteria? Can you provide information on the different role position of the 14 athletes? 
• Provide the formula presented bya walter et al. (line 113).
• Remove the "ninety-five percent confidence interval".
• Congratulations for your effort!
• Great work!

 

 

Author Response

• Reorganize the flow of ideas: The introduction currently presents a brief definition of agility, followed by several paragraphs that discuss the importance of agility in volleyball. This back-and-forth approach can make the introduction less cohesive. Consider restructuring the introduction to provide a more linear progression of ideas. Modified content in line 33-113

• Address terminology inconsistency: In line 32, the term "invasive" should be changed to "non invasive" to accurately describe volleyball as a non-contact sport. Modified text in line 37

• Include references for supporting claims: In line 56, where the paper highlights the importance of defensive agility in various sports, provide citations for each sport mentioned. Added citations in line 59

• What was the inclusion criteria? Can you provide information on the different role position of the 14 athletes? Added content in line 136-138
• Provide the formula presented bya walter et al. (line 113).  Added formula in line 121-123
• Remove the "ninety-five percent confidence interval". Modified text in line 193

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study is original in defensive-oriented reactive agility test with lateral movement. 

I have some suggestions which would enhance the quality of this paper. 

Abstract

- From the abstract, it is not clear whether a within-day or between-day test-retest was performed. 

- Many statistical methods are mentioned here, however, the results do not include for example ICC value, SEM, RC, MD and many others parameters which were calculated.  

Methods

Line 120: I propose to state the standard deviation in height and body weight. 

Line 138-139: Replace "She" with "He", whereas all participants were male, or use the term "subject" throughout the whole description of the test. 

Line 147: You state that "while the time of return was not registered." I miss the information about the delay between each reaction. 

Line 240 - Table 1: Please, use the same terms. Here you combined pretest and retest, in the abstract, pretest and posttest and in the table 2 test-retest... It seems confusing. 

Line 261 - In my opinion, Cohen´s d could not have a negative value, because the formula includes the absolute value of the z-score. 

Overall

It seems that several reliability parameters are good only if the result of this test is "total time", not the time of reactions to each direction separately. It is demonstrated in the discussion. However, this fact is missing in the conclusion and abstract. I consider that this information is important for other potential researchers and should be stated in these sections, too. Many of them read just these sections of studies as the first. 

 

Author Response

Abstract

• From the abstract, it is not clear whether a within-day or between-day test-retest was performed. Supplemented content in line 18-19
• Many statistical methods are mentioned here, however, the results do not include for example ICC value, SEM, RC, MD and many others parameters which were calculated.  Supplemented content in line 23-26

Methods

Line 120: I propose to state the standard deviation in height and body weight. Supplemented content in line 132-133

Line 138-139: Replace "She" with "He", whereas all participants were male, or use the term "subject" throughout the whole description of the test. Corrected text in line 155-156

Line 147: You state that "while the time of return was not registered." I miss the information about the delay between each reaction. Supplemented content in line 164-165

Line 240 - Table 1: Please, use the same terms. Here you combined pretest and retest, in the abstract, pretest and posttest and in the table 2 test-retest... It seems confusing. Corrected text in line 18, table 1 (260), table 2 (271)

Line 261 - In my opinion, Cohen´s d could not have a negative value, because the formula includes the absolute value of the z-score. 

Reply: Cohen's d counts as the difference in means: pretest mean - post test mean. If the first mean is greater and the second mean is less then the difference is positive, and if the first mean is less than the second mean then the mean is negative. And we have this. See Table 1. For negative Cohen's, the pretest averages are smaller, and for positive Cohen's, the pretest is larger than the retest. 

Overall

It seems that several reliability parameters are good only if the result of this test is "total time", not the time of reactions to each direction separately. It is demonstrated in the discussion. However, this fact is missing in the conclusion and abstract. I consider that this information is important for other potential researchers and should be stated in these sections, too. Many of them read just these sections of studies as the first. Supplemented content in line 384-387

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf