The aim of this initial study was to determine the reliability of the Hunt Squash Accuracy Test (HSAT) whilst also investigating the validity of the test against player ability as determined by tournament ranking and coach judgement.
Method – How did the authors conduct the test:
To assess the reliability of the HSAT ten male squash players aged 17.3 ± 6.4 performed the HSAT twice in 7 days. The typical error was then determined by comparing the two consecutive trials.
To assess the validity of the HSAT eight male squash players aged 14.8 ± 1.9 performed the HSAT and then competed in a round-robin tournament (PAR 11, best of 5 games).
The tournament ranking was then obtained following the conclusion of the tournament.
Prior to beginning the tournament the coach also ranked each player.
Results – What did the authors find:
The authors determined that the typical error of the HSAT is 6.94 shots or 1.82% of the 375 shots and that the test is very reliable with a 90% confidence limit.The most unreliable shot was the backhand boast with a test error of 10.08%.The most reliable shot was the backhand shot from the middle of the court with a test error of 3.32%. The correlation coefficient compared to HSAT for the round robin and coaches rank was 0.93. Following the results, the authors concluded that the study demonstrated that the HSAT to be both reliable based on the test error and valid when compared to tournament ranking and coach perception. The authors suggested that further testing be done with larger sample sizes of elite players. This would allow comparisons to be drawn against match analysis statistics (winners/errors rates/time between shots/player ranking) and player HSAT scores which would aid in strengthening the validity of the HSAT.
Attached below is a download for the TE scores of all the squash shots in the HSAT and the Correlation Coefficients.
If you would like to know more about this test or how to perform this test, please check out my blog post titled: A Review Of The Hunt Squash Accuracy Test. This review featured on prominent squash websites SquashSite, Squash Mad, Daily Squash Report and The Squash Pod. You will also get access to an instructional on how to perform the test. Lastly, I have provided an accuracy calculator which will allow players/coaches to track their performance and determine if a true change has occurred. You can find the calculator here.
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Yours Truly,
Dominic Benacquista - Global Squash Coach
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Reference:
Williams, B. K., Hunt, G. B., Graham-Smith, P., & Bourdon, P. C. (2014). Measuring squash hitting accuracy using the ‘Hunt squash accuracy test’. In ISBS-Conference Proceedings Archive.