The current measuring scale for evaluating swimming knowledge is primarily based on qualitative criteria (distance covered and final result while swimming in a specific technique). There are only few qualitative approaches to evaluating swimming technique, both in Slovenia and around the world. For this specific purpose, scale for evaluating swimming knowledge via mistakes in technique was recently designed. The scale was made by Slovenian swimming experts and based on their professional knowledge and experiences. However, it has not been tested in practice yet.
The thesis had two main purposes. The first was to establish, which swimming techniques are used by candidates in the 100m distance and what results they achieve with said techniques. The second was set out to determine, which mistakes most commonly occurred during front crawl and breaststroke as well as how their occurrence i.e. qualitative evaluation of swimming knowledge, connects to candidates’ times at the first 50m distance.
The results were analysed separately for male and female. The analysis was done on a sample of 286 candidates, who participated in the acceptance procedure in 2016. The test was based on 100m freestyle. We established that most candidates swam front crawl. This group also achieved the best results. Additionally, we established that during breaststroke, the most common mistakes were “insufficient gliding” and “head is above the water”. In front crawl, common errors were “sinking the extending arm when inhaling” and “finish the stroke to early”. By using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, we confirmed a linear correlation between the amount of numerically evaluated mistakes, which occurred during swimming, and the result, which candidates achieved in the first 50m of swimming. The correlation is statistically positive (p < 0,05) and is strong/high between variables in relation to front crawl and moderate/medium in breaststroke. This means that the candidates with the lowest amount of numerically evaluated mistakes achieved the best results.
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