Testing the Expanded Sport Official's Decision-Making Model

Sport officials represent a ‘third team’ in sports that have the potential to change the outcome of games, seasons, and careers. The existing research on officials is sparse and disjointed with many studies going uncited as their researchers abandon officiating research. The present study tests the Enhanced Sport Official’s Decision-Making Model (ESODMM), which expands the existing Official’s Specific Decision-Making Model by integrating additional variables that influence decision-making, particularly anticipation and emotion (Plessner & Haar, 2006). To test the role of anticipation and emotion in the ESODMM, 56 basketball officials (32 high school level, 24 NCAA division 1) were assigned to either high (crowd noise) or low (no crowd noise) stress conditions and asked to make calls on occluded or non-occluded basketball video clips. Results revealed that officials in the high stress condition experienced more stress and anxiety resulting in less accurate decisions and goal-directed gaze behaviors. Additionally, experienced officials made more accurate decisions and goal-directed gaze behaviors than novices. Moreover, decision-making accuracy was lowest in the non-occluded block. Finally, experienced officials’ emotions were affected similarly by the high stress condition while maintaining their decision-making advantage. These results support that emotion, information-processing, and anticipation have an important role in officials’ decision-making. Implementing the ESODMM will provide researchers with a more comprehensive model to guide their understanding of officials’ decision-making.