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Within one group of archers, scores differ widely from one archer to another

11 studies · 244 archers measured

ForContextAgainst201220142016201820202022202420262018, for, n = 502017, for, n = 442020, for, n = 342022, for, n = 312021, for, n = 202024, for, n = 182025, for, n = 182019, for, n = 122021, for, n = 122022, for, n = 102012, for, n = 92019, for, n = 4
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

Whenever a study reports individual scores, the spread within the group is wide, at every level. At a Turkish national championship for women's compound, totals over 72 arrows at 50 m run from 289 to 695; in twelve Indonesian club archers from 188 to 325 over 36 arrows; in four Russian masters of sport the tens over 60 arrows range from 17 to 31; among nine competitive Korean high-school archers the average per arrow at 50 m runs from 7.3 to 9.1. Around ten independent samples, from school beginners to masters of sport, point the same way, and none finds a tight group. The picture only bends at the top: in the Chinese national team the standard deviation between athletes is about a third of the provincial team's, although 1.7 points per arrow still separate the best and the worst of the national squad. Almost all the samples are small and many sit in regional journals, but the measure is simple and does not depend on the design. The real limit lies elsewhere: these are snapshots of a single day, and they do not say how much of the spread is a stable difference between archers and how much is one archer's day.

Also phrased as: "every team has someone a hundred points ahead of the rest"; "score differences between archers of the same level"; "the group average says nothing about the individual"; "score variability between archers"

In practice

Clubs often think in terms of team and category averages, as if archers in the same group or the same competition class all shot at roughly the same level.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2012 Reported The first data with individual scores come from nine competitive archers at a Korean sports high school, twenty-five arrows at 50 m: the group average is 8.4 per arrow, but individuals range from 7.3 to 9.1, almost two points between teenagers from the same school and the same training. It is a single small sample, and the figure is a by-product of a study on how the target is perceived: the evidence in favour is there and it is limited.
  2. 2017 Reported A Turkish national championship for women's compound shows the same thing in 44 archers: over 72 arrows at 50 m the totals run from 289 to 695 out of 720, with a standard deviation of a hundred points. The journal has questionable editorial standards, and by rule a questionable venue does not decide the status: the picture is still that of one solid study, so the status remains reported.
  3. 2018 Reported A doctoral thesis on fifty beginner pupils takes the data to the other end of the scale: before the course the standard deviation is almost half the average (31.5 on 69) and afterwards still almost a third (27.8 on 92). There are now two solid studies, but the second uses a modified school test on children who do not compete, and for groups of competitive archers there is still only one sample: the status remains reported.
  4. 2019 Corroborated Two samples of competitive archers arrive, independent and at very different levels: twelve Indonesian club archers range from 188 to 325 points over 36 arrows at 30 m, and four Russian masters of sport shoot 31, 28, 27 and 17 tens out of sixty arrows each. With four studies in venues that are not questionable, from beginners to masters of sport, all pointing the same way and none against, the wide spread within a group holds: corroborated.
  5. 2020 Corroborated Thirty-four university beginners at 10 m confirm the spread, from 35 to 125 points out of 150 in one of the two groups, and add a detail: after a few weeks of mental training the standard deviation falls from 23.5 to 12.3 in one group and from 15.9 to 12.5 in the other. Without a control group there is no telling how much is due to the training and how much to plain practice, and the status does not change.
  6. 2022 Corroborated The first comparison of two levels measured the same way shows where the rule bends: in the Chinese national team the average per arrow at 70 m is 8.7 with a standard deviation of 0.5, in the Beijing team 6.8 with 1.4, almost three times as much. Even in the national team, though, individuals range from 7.7 to 9.4, while the provincial archers range from 2.4 to 8.2. At the top the spread narrows without closing, ten club beginners confirm the basic picture the same year, and the status remains corroborated.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Studies describe groups of archers, and your own numbers show how far the finding applies to your shooting.

See the full assessment
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Within one group of archers, scores differ widely from one archer to another (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/competition/scores-differ-within-group

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_punteggidiversistessogruppo,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Within one group of archers, scores differ widely from one archer to another},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/competition/scores-differ-within-group},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Other claims in this domain

See all claims on competition and scoring