Impact of psychological and physical load on the decision-making of top-class handball referees

Nicolas Bloß, Florian Loffing, Jörg Schorer and Dirk Büsch

International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 2022, vol. 22, issue 3, 352-369

Abstract: Referees are challenged for accurate decision-making under physical and psychological load. However, erroneous decision-making can lead referees to repeatedly negatively think about the error, i.e. they begin to ruminate. Previous studies focused on the relationship between decision-making and either physical or psychological load. Here, we examined the combined impact of physical and psychological load on top-class handball referees’ decision-making. N = 73 referees performed the Yo-Yo Test for Referees combined with psychological load induced through instantaneous feedback on the decisions to activate the referees’ rumination-trait, i.e. to test if low and high ruminating referees respond differently to load and feedback. Results indicate no effects of physical load on decision accuracy (i.e. foul vs. no foul), but referees’ reasonings accuracy (i.e. type of foul, punishment) decreased under medium external load. Moreover, low and high ruminating referees did statistically not differ in decision and reasoning accuracy. Results indicate that physical load may not affect decisions, but might affect reasonings. Thus, subsequent studies should incorporate decisions and reasonings in handball referees, especially against the background of referee’s development. For practitioners, the Yo-Yo Test for Referees seems a beneficial tool through the combination of physical likewise psychological load and a rule test in handball.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24748668.2022.2061323 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:22:y:2022:i:3:p:352-369

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RPAN20

DOI: 10.1080/24748668.2022.2061323

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport is currently edited by Peter O'Donoghue

More articles in International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().