A Single-Unit Design Structure and Gender Differences in the Swimming World Championships

• Authors: Svetlana Pushkar , Vladimir B. Issurin , Oleg Verbitsky
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Four 50 meter male/female finals - the freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, and backstroke - swum during individual events at the Swimming World Championships (SWCs) can be defined in four clusters. The aim of the present study was to use a single-unit design structure, in which the swimmer was defined at only one scale, to evaluate gender differences in start reaction times among elite swimmers in 50 m events. The top six male and female swimmers in the finals of four swimming stroke final events in six SWCs were analyzed. An unpaired t-test was used. The p-values were evaluated using Neo-Fisherian significance assessments (Hurlbert and Lombardi, 2012). For the freestyle, gender differences in the start reaction times were positively identified for five of the six SWCs. For the backstroke, gender differences in the start reaction times could be dismissed for five of the six SWCs. For both the butterfly and breaststroke, gender differences in the start reaction times yielded inconsistent statistical differences. Pooling all swimmers together (df = 286) showed that an overall gender difference in the start reaction times could be positively identified: p = 0.00004. The contrast between the gender differences in start reaction times between the freestyle and backstroke may be associated with different types of gender adaptations to swimming performances. When the natural groupings of swimming stroke final events were ignored, sacrificial pseudoreplication occurred, which may lead to erroneous statistical differences

Keywords

EN

Clusters; designing studies; statistical analysis; nondemonic intrusion; sample size; sacrificial pseudoreplication

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: Journal of Human Kinetics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 215-222

Dates

published

1 - 10 - 2014

online

10 - 10 - 2014

Contributors

author

Svetlana Pushkar

• Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, P.O.B. 3, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel

author

Vladimir B. Issurin

• Elite Sport Department, Wingate Institute of Physical Education & Sport, Netanya, Israel

author

Oleg Verbitsky

• Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/hukin-2014-0075