Evaluating decisions made in common basketball game scenarios

Abstract

The ability to make good decisions is important to people in all areas of lives. This is also evident in sports games where players have a very limited time to obtain, interpret and analyze information on ever-changing situations before they decide on their actions. Using common basketball game scenarios, this research compares and evaluates decisions made by novice and experienced basketball players of different ages. Adapted from the decision-making test developed by McMorris and Graydon in 1996, this computer-based test comprises 25 common basketball game scenarios, of which 20 are unique, and 5 are repeated for consistency checks. For each scenario, participants decide if the player with the ball should hold on to the ball, pass it to another team mate, dribble the ball or attempt a shot. The participant's choice of action and the time taken to make the decision are the dependent variables analyzed. All 20 unique scenarios were reviewed by expert coaches with at least 10 years of coaching experience. We identified 10 of these scenarios as straight-forward (easy) as all the coaches agree on the same choice of action. The remaining 10 scenarios are deemed as ambiguous (difficult) as the coaches have differing views on the best choice of action for the scenario. In this paper, we investigate how the decisions made by players differ from that of coaches and the time taken to decide.