In the Opinion of Elite Volleyball Coaches, How Do Contextual Variables Influence Individual Volleyball Performance in Competitions? López Serrano, Carlos Moreno Arroyo, María Perla Coaching Performance analysis Sport Competitive environment Practical perspective The main objective was to know the elite coaches’ opinions regarding the relevance, definition, and importance of volleyball contextual variables to measure individual performance in competition. After performing a literature review, an instrument to gather the opinion of the world’s elite volleyball coaches was elaborated by four volleyball specialists. The sample of experts consisted in 20 world’s elite volleyball coaches who met at least three experience years in first division or national teams. The instrument collected experts’ information on the contextual variables in relation to relevance, definition, and importance. Cronbach’s and Aiken’s V coefficient were used to test the reliability and content validity of the contextual variables, respectively. To compare the importance of the contextual variables U de Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used. Results showed that opposition level, set period, score difference, results of the previous set, competitive load variables, high level, final periods 20, and high load categories were relevant (Aikens V > 0.70). In addition, high level, final period 20 and +10, and high load categories were significantly more important (p < 0.05). We conclude that, according to the elite coaches, the contextual variables should not be analyzed separately. Future studies should consider contextual variables dynamically. 2022-11-23T08:48:23Z 2022-11-23T08:48:23Z 2022-10-18 journal article López-Serrano, C... [et al.]. In the Opinion of Elite Volleyball Coaches, How Do Contextual Variables Influence Individual Volleyball Performance in Competitions? Sports 2022, 10, 156. [https://doi.org/10.3390/sports10100156] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/78086 10.3390/sports10100156 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional MDPI