Fig 1.
Experimental setup for the SDA-M split procedure to measure the cognitive representation.
A screen showed two different tactic situations in indoor handball. The left stimulus was in an anchoring position and compared to every stimulus. Afterwards, the next randomly chosen stimulus became the anchoring stimulus until every stimulus was one time in the anchoring position. The red triangles represent the opponent team, whereas the blue triangles represent the own team. In this example, the left picture displays an offensive tactic situation of the blue team, and the right picture displays a transition from offense to defense from the blue team.
Table 1.
Overview of the stimuli with the results of the SDA-M stimuli evaluation.
Based on the coaches’ decisions, the item fit analysis resulted in the selection of the three team-specific tactics used per game phase. The descriptions of the team tactics refer to the participants’ team perspective.
Fig 2.
Mean group dendrograms of handball team tactics for (a) less skilled indoor handball players and (b) skilled indoor handball players. The values on the y axis display Euclidean distances and the numbers on the x axis relate to the team-specific tactic stimuli, that is, (1–3) backcourt-pivot cooperation, (4–6) transition to attack, (7–9) handing over–taking over, and (10–12) transition to defense. Connections beneath the horizontal red line are statistically considered as clusters (dcrit = 4.55; α = 0.01), whereas connections above this value are considered as distinct.
Fig 3.
Mean group dendrograms of handball team tactics for three different age groups (a) U15, (b) U17, and (c) U19.
Table 2.
Comparison of mean group dendrograms for age group, handball experience, and competition level (p = 0.01) with the ideal structure applying the ARI.
Fig 4.
Mean group dendrograms of handball team tactics for three different groups of handball experience (a) 1–5 years, (b) 6–9 years, and (c) ≥ 10 years.
Fig 5.
Mean group dendrograms of handball team tactics for (a) local level indoor handball players and (b) regional level indoor handball players.