EFFECT OF STANDARDIZING OBSERVATION AND RATING CRITERIA FOR THE FRONT CRAWL STROKE TECHNIQUE ON INTER- AND INTRA-RATER RELIABILITY

ABSTRACT This study aimed to assess the effect of standardizing observation and rating criteria for the front crawl stroke technique on inter- and intra-rater reliability in order to propose an observation list. Two teachers and two competitive swimming coaches with different academic backgrounds were responsible for evaluating the front crawl stroke technique of 44 swimmers using video. Each swimmer completed a 25m course at a comfortable speed, having their displacement recorded in the lateral and frontal planes, both submerged and out of water, in the final 10 m of the pool. Throughout the recording, the swimmers did not breath laterally. Only the movement performed by the right arm was the raters’ focus of observation and was based on a checklist. After the shooting, the raters participated in three stages: in the first stage, there was an intervention to standardize the observation and rating criteria; inter-rater agreement was tested in the second stage, while intra-rater agreement was obtained in the third. In the second stage of the study, the agreement ranged from small to low (k=0.08 and k=0.38). In the third stage, some raters showed poor and low agreement (k=-0.13 and k=0.35), while others showed agreement between reasonable and virtually perfect (k=0.64 and k=0.87). From the results presented, it was concluded that the intervention proposal did not have the desired effect of standardizing the observation and rating criteria among the raters.