The purposes of this study were 1) to develop a practical and comprehensive test battery for evaluating decision making when choosing the best play in various basketball game situations, and 2) to determine the best marking method in actual situations based on methods considering the answers by two or more authorities’ because current decisionmaking tests are too simple and not practical for actual situations and decision-making in basketball is complicated and can have differ results for different authorities.
A total of 366 decision-making test items using a videotape system composed from 7 playing scenes and 4 decisionmaking processes were devised. Eighty-nine males and 68 female university players along with 7 authorities with a JBA coach license completed the decision-making test battery.
Forty-nine test items having sufficient reliability and validity were chosen for the investigation of the best marking method. Three marking methods were assessed using the 49 test items: 1) an only one correct answer method, 2) a two or more correct answer method, and 3) an allotting mark method that was marked according to the number of answers chosen by the authorities. Reliability, criterion-related validity, and internal validity tests showed that the allotting mark method was the most reliable and valid among the three methods.
The reliable and valid decision-making test battery comprised of 49 test items had high content validity because it covered all typical 7 play scenes and 4 decision-making processes which corresponded to Inagaki’s Peculiar Strategy for Offense in Basketball (1982, 1993, 1999). In addition, this test battery was considered very practical because it could discriminate players’ ability between starting members and second-string players.
