An Analysis of Game Play in Volleyball

This study describes game play patterns in two beginning volleyball classes for the set, forearm pass, serve, and spike. The subjects, 58 male and female university students, were pretested and placed into ability groups. The 22 days of class were videotaped and the videotapes were analyzed by tallying successful and unsuccessful trials for the four skills. A one-way analysis of variance was used to determine any differences between classes and between ability groups for contacts per serve and percentage of successful trials. No significant difference was reported between classes, but there were significant differences between ability groups for contacts per serve and percentage of successful trials except for spike trials. Plots provided the semester game play patterns for analysis and indicated that the low-ability group contacted the ball fewer times than the other groups and was not as successful when contact was made. According to the plot patterns, game play did not result in performance improvement. Instruction needs to incorporate gamelike drills and lead-up games to bridge the gap from skill drills to game play.