# Situational Analysis and Tactical Decision-Making in Elite Handball Players
## 3 Results  
Data screening revealed no violations of univariate and multivariate normality assumptions. Kurtosis and skewness indices were within \(\pm 2\). A z-point transformation was performed to allow comparison among scores with different scales. Descriptive statistics of participants' age, years of practice, and training frequency are shown in Table 1.  
Figure 5 shows, for each game situation, the frequency of answers provided by the athletes. First-tier athletes always provided at least one answer in game situations one and two; in game situation three, the same players provided only one answer, while in game situation four, three of them provided two answers. MANOVA revealed significant general differences between players belonging to the two tiers in each of the considered game situations: game situation 1: [PERSON]'s \(\lambda\) = 0.671, F (3, 34) = 5.54, \(p\) = 0.003, and \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.33; game situation 2: [PERSON]'s \(\lambda\) = 0.427, F (3, 34) = 14.79, \(p\) < 0.001, and \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.57; game situation 3: [PERSON]'s \(\lambda\) = 0.48, F (3, 34) = 9.34, \(p\) < 0.001, and \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.52; game situation 4: [PERSON]'s \(\lambda\) = 0.43, F (3, 34) = 14.44, \(p\) < 0.001, and \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.57. Table 2 shows the results of one-way ANOVAs for each independent variable according to each game situation. Players from A1 had significantly higher means in response times and accuracy scores than A2 athletes in all the situations considered. The effect size of these differences ranged from moderate to high. In the most complex offensive problem (game situation 4), there was also a significant difference in technical correctness, with higher averages in first-tier athletes, even if the effect size was at least moderate. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline
**Tier** & **Gender** & **Variables** & **Min** & **Max** & **Mean** & **SD** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{First} & \multirow{3}{*}{Male (\(n\) = 11)} & Age (years) & 18 & 35 & 23.55 & 5.70 \\  & & Years of practice & 2 & 3 & 2.91 & 0.30 \\  & & Training frequency (time per week) & 3 & 5 & 4.64 & 0.81 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Second} & \multirow{3}{*}{Male (\(n\) = 11)} & Age (years) & 18 & 38 & 26.91 & 6.80 \\  & & Years of practice & 2 & 3 & 2.91 & 0.30 \\  & & Training frequency (time per week) & 2 & 5 & 3.27 & 0.79 \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{2-6}  & \multirow{3}{*}{Female (\(n\) = 16)} & Age (years) & 17 & 40 & 26.19 & 6.90 \\ \cline{1-1}  & & Years of practice & 1 & 3 & 2.79 & 0.58 \\ \cline{1-1}  & & Training frequency (time per week) & 3 & 5 & 3.44 & 0.63 \\ \hline \end{tabular} Note: SD = standard deviation.  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Descriptive statistics of participants’ age, years of practice, and training frequency. Figure 5: Number of options found by the athletes to the four videos (overall sample). Logistic regression analyses were conducted to predict the membership to a tier (i.e., first-tier was set as baseline) using accuracy and the technical correctness of responses as predictors. In each game situation, a significant regression model resulted, and its main characteristics are described in the following list:  
* Game situation 1: \(\chi^{2}=10.39\), \(p=0.005\), McFadden pseudo-R\({}^{2}=0.223\);
* Game situation 2: \(\chi^{2}=24.18\), \(p<0.001\), McFadden pseudo-R\({}^{2}=0.529\);
* Game situation 3: \(\chi^{2}=6.55\), \(p<0.04\), McFadden pseudo-R\({}^{2}=0.171\);
* Game situation 4: \(\chi^{2}=27.58\), \(p<0.001\), McFadden pseudo-R\({}^{2}=0.594\). According to pseudo-R\({}^{2}\) scores and their interpretation (i.e., values closer to 1 indicating better fit), the models obtained for game situations 2 and 4 seemed to be better. Logistic regression coefficients are reported in Table 3 for each game situation. In game situations 1 to 3, the accuracy of response was the only significant predictor. The relative ORs indicate that when the accuracy is raised by one unit (i.e., one level of accuracy), the membership to tier 1 is 4.4, 16.6, and 3.16 more times likely, respectively.