Intra and Inter-Rater Reliability of the Golf Movement Screen (GMS)

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the golf movement screen (GMS). The GMS consists of 10 tests, which are assessed by rating a number of criteria specific to each movement. Intra-rater reliability was performed by an experienced rater assessing a sample of twenty golfers aged 12–18 years old who were part of a National High Performance Golf Program. For the inter-rater analysis, one experienced and three novice raters examined the videos of ten golfers of varying ability preforming the GMS, and were asked to rate their movement competency. The sum of all ten movements provides the total GMS score (0–93) which had good intra- and inter-rater reliability with ICC = 0.94 in both cases. The total score of each test included in the GMS achieved good intra-rater reliability (ICC = 0.76–0.94), with nine out of the ten achieving good inter-rater reliability (ICC > 0.75). Average kappa values for the intra-rater analysis for each body segment demonstrated moderate to very good reliability across the GMS (k = 0.4–0.84); however, the inter-rater reliability reported for most of the segments was only fair (k = 0.20–0.37). The GMS has good levels of total score and total exercise score reliability when examined by both experienced and novice raters. An experienced rater can reliably use total score, total exercise score and body segment scores; whereas, novice raters should use body segment scoring with caution.