Material & Methods

Design

This research is a descriptive study and the relational survey model, which is one of the general survey models, was used in the research (Karasar, 2018). The method of the research is observation-based notational data collection. All the matches were observed, and the results were recorded in a notational form, then transferred to the computer environment and necessary statistical processes were applied.

Samples and variables

Within the scope of this study: After the postponement of the competitions due to the Covid-19 epidemic in March 2020, the Junior and U23 category matches held in November, as well as the Junior European Judo Championship and U23 European Judo Championship held in 2019, male and female in total, constitute the universe of our 1944 official competition research been taken under. However, in 513 of these matches, the athletes did not compete by passing bye. For this reason, the universe of our research consists of 1431 competitions in 14 weight categories (7 female, 7 male). In order to increase the validity and reliability of our research, sampling was not done, and the entire universe (n=1431) was reached.

Procedures

The best competitions held in the European region in 2019 were the Junior European Judo Championships (n = 389 competitions) and the U23 European Judo Championships (n = 277 competitions). A total of 1431 matches in these tournaments were analysed: 812 for male and 619 for female. The analyses were documented by a judo expert coach of the International Judo Federation. Information related to the match-variables performance, such as the number, type of scores (wazari and ippon) and penalties during matches are taken from the Official Results Books of the International Judo Federation for further analysis (https://www.ijf.org/results). The reliability between results book date and video analysis conducted by us was considered excellent (ICC = 0.99). Then a judo expert (a judo coach, more than 30 years of judo experience and black belt) tabulated the data, and another judo coach (more than 15 years of judo experience and black belt) performed the statistical analysis. Considering that the analyzed data were obtained from an open access website in secondary form and were not produced experimentally, there is no ethical problem in examining or interpreting them (Dopico-Calvo et al., 2023; Kons, Agostinho, Lopes-Silva, et al., 2022). This research waives ethics committee approval as it does not directly involve human participants.

Statistical Analysis

By using the SPSS 25 program in the comparison of the variables of the research data; Frequency (f), percentage (%), mean (x ̵̅), standard deviation (Ss.) results from descriptive statistics were used. Average results: It was interpreted by calculating “category number row spacing ÷ category number”. Independent Chi-square tests were used to test the association between different match scores and sex groups, weight categories and probability coefficient to confirm the degree of relationship for all variables. The correlation strength of the tests with a significant difference was calculated with the “Contingency Coefficient”. The effect size used was Cramér’s V effect size’s (ES ≤ 0.2 weak, 0.2 < ES ≤ 0.6 moderate, ES > 0.6 strong effect) (Cramér’s V, 2023).