As my dissetation proposal i am intending on comparing the usage of visual display (from a video anlysis) and visual display from the on court environment and compare the differences in anticipation of shuttle landing position when returning the long serve. (It sounds like a mouthful but written up makes a lot more sense) Does anybody have any suggestions of what should be built into this investigation or anything that could potentially go wrong??? Also, does anybody know where (in written context - i.e. badminton magazines, published articles, published books) i could find information on the most standard stance and position on court for returning the serve in singles??? Thanks.
First I should ask why do you want to do this comparison? i.e what value does this comparison have? Secondly, your methodology should try to minimise 'bias' which simply put is a systematic deviation from the truth.
This comparison serves importance as the advanced cues demonstrated by the server allow the returner of serve to gain an awareness of where the long serve is to be placed and whether this serve is going in or out (Obviously if the serve is going long it would make sense to leave it to win the point!) By including the field-based experiment (on court) if there is no difference between the results of lab testing against field testing it would suggest that video demonstrations could be used as an effective teaching aid to introduce novices to lateral and depth constancies. How would you suggest minimising bias is possible within the framework of the experiment?? Thanks.
What cues are you talking about? Determining the position of the high serve is a result of watching the shuttle trajectory immediately and continuously after service. In this case, you have so much time that cues from the server don't matter at all.
Nope, the advanced cues leading up to the striking of the shutte cock. The flight trajectory will be occluded in the field - experiment using visors and in the lab by occluding the vision at the point of contact with the shttle. So we are talking about pre-contact advanced cues!!!!
What I mean is that with duration of the shuttle flight in the long serve, the importance of pre-contact cues is minimal. The player returning the serve is not under any time pressure to decide where the shuttle is going; he has plenty of time to look around and decide what to do.
By all means, those "advanced cues" cannot predict or as you say make the receiver "anticipate" where the shuttle is going to land by observing the server and its racket, most notably at point of contact. Because you are ignoring the most essential factor: the shuttle. What will you do in case of a fast shuttle or a slower one? Second, how can the receiver possibly differentiate the racket angle at point of contact? Will the long serve be a high deep one or a more attacking flat flick serve ? What about servers having different acceleration, and accelerating at the very last moment? A server can make radically different long serves and still make the shuttle land at the same spot every time. Those cues may have an impact on anticipating whether the server is making a long serve or a short serve. Then again, advanced players have deceptive serves, making the read even more difficult.