Considerations for vertical jump testing in collegiate basketball players: The impact of immediate individual versus social comparison feedback and team leaderboard engagement.

This article examines the effects of two types of visual feedback—individual visual feedback (IVF) and social comparison feedback (SCF)—on countermovement jump (CMJ) performance and variability in male and female National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 basketball players. The study found that SCF, which included performance leaderboards visible to the entire team, led to statistically significant but generally small improvements in seven out of eight force-time metrics related to jump performance, as well as reduced variability between jumps, suggesting more stable and reliable assessments. Notably, gender-specific differences were observed in the reactive strength index modified (mRSI), with male athletes showing greater responsiveness to SCF than females. The findings highlight the potential of SCF to enhance motivation and performance acutely, but also caution practitioners against inconsistent use of feedback types to maintain data interpretability and sensitivity in longitudinal monitoring.