A CONSTRUCTION OF OCTAGONAL-SPECIFIC AGILITY STEP TEST (O-SAT) IN ELITE TAEKWONDO ATHLETES

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to construct an octagonal-specific agility step test in elite taekwondo athletes. The sample group was 200 taekwondo athletes aged 15 to 22 years old in Thailand. They were divided into two groups: black belt taekwondo athletes and general taekwondo athletes.  The first group consisted of 170 black belt taekwondo athletes who have experiences in national and international competitions. There were 92 male athletes, with the average age of 17.04 + 1.72 years and 8.36 + 2.02 years of competitive experiences. There were 78 female athletes, with the average age of 16.96 +1.88 years and 8.56 +1.49 years of competitive experiences. The second group was general taekwondo athletes with qualifications below the black belt. They were 30 male athletes, with the average age of 16.13 +1.25 years and 1.96 + 0.71 years of competitive experiences. They were selected by the purposive sampling.  The instrument used in this research was the octagonal-specific agility step test created by the researchers, which was examined by an expert to determine the validity of the instrument. The reliability was found by the test-retest to determine the construct validity. The Criterion-Related Validity between the created test and the Nine Square Test, Hexagon Agility Test, and Taekwondo-Specific Agility Test (TSAT) were calculated by the Pearson-product moment correlation coefficient, with the statistically significant level at .05.

The results found that the octagonal-specific agility step test in elite taekwondo athletes has validity at 0.96. The reliability was significantly higher (r=.806) at the .01 level. There was a correlation coefficient of reliability for the octagonal-specific agility step test created by the researchers and the 9 Square Test, the Hexagon Test, and the Taekwondo Specific Agility Test were in the moderate level, with the statistically significant level at the .01.

In conclusion, the construction of the octagonal-specific agility step test created by the researchers can be used to measure and evaluate agility performance for taekwondo athletes and can be used to select and develop taekwondo athletes’ performance in the future.