Colour Vision and Distant Visual Acuity of Elite and Junior Cricketers: Educational and Sporting Implications for Students

Abstract

Evidence suggests that male children and adolescents spend increasingly more of their leisure time engaged in indoor activities such as the viewing of computer or television screens which require near visual acuity. Consequently, time spent on outdoor activities such as sport that requires distant visual acuity or acute, sharp vision is considerably less. Furthermore, 8 percent of the male population is known to have colour vision problems... A study was conducted in to compare the colour vision and visual acuity of elite male cricketers, junior male cricketers, and students from a secondary and tertiary school context who had not received intensive cricket training. This study aimed to determine whether visual acuity is higher than normal in elite cricketers and explored the relationship between colour vision deficiency and participation in cricket. Findings suggest that males involved in outdoor sports that require constant use of distant vision such as cricket, perform significantly better than the norm on visual acuity tests. In addition, male students with known colour vision deficiencies do not participate willingly or effectively in sports that require normal colour vision. This paper will address implications for male students who experience colour vision or visual acuity problems, who participate in sport and educational performance in classroom settings.