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Abstract Gymnastics coaches typically place their gymnasts in a rank order from poorest to best for competition in each event. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if the scores of nationally certified gymnastics judges were influenced by this expected placement of gymnasts within a team order of competition. The Team Optional Session of the 1973 Big Eight Gymnastics Meet was videotaped. Twelve nationally certified gymnastics judges, randomly selected from within three geographical locations of the United States, scored gymnastics routines on each of two sets of videotapes, edited from the original tapes, in two sessions separated by 48 hr. The videotapes were so edited that within-team orders of competition were reversed in one or the other of the two sets of videotapes for selected teams in each event. In this manner, scores were collected for 40 routines, each of which appeared both first and fourth in the withinteam orders of competition. A 2 × 12 × 2 ANOVA revealed that (1) a gymnast performing the same routine is at a significant (p < .05) scoring advantage if he is judged as the fourth competitor for his team rather than the first competitor, and (2) regional differences existed among the scores awarded by gymnastics judges.
Scheer et al. (Mon,) studied this question.