The Reliability of Reactive Agility Testing in 5th Grade Females

Abstract

Reactive agility is important in sports such as soccer, football and basketball. Reactive agility testing (RAT) is a common measure of change of direction, speed, balance and quickness. RAT in adult and elite athletes is common; however, there is limited documentation of RAT in pre-adolescent girls. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of the RAT in 5th grade females. Elementary school-aged females (n=14, 10.1 ± 0.4 years), performed four trials of the reactive agility test (RAT), two of which were learning trials. Each trial was timed with a handheld stop watch with a 1 minute rest period between trials. The trial 3 and 4 scores were 4.54 ± 0.77 and 4.47 ± 0.73 seconds respectively. The interclass and intraclass reliability coefficients were r=0.85 and ICC=0.87. The standard error of measure was SEm=0.29 seconds with 90% confidence limits of UL: 0.43, LL: 0.22. The mean difference between trials was -0.07 ± 0.41 seconds (90% confidence limits of UL: 0.12, LL: -0.27).Within the parameters of this study, the RAT is a highly reliable field test for measuring reactive agility in pre-adolescent girls.