Relative Age Effect - The Southwest Talent Development Centre
Thirty years ago a psychologist attending an ice hockey game was scanning through the programme when she noticed something odd about the birth dates; most of the players were born in the first six months of the year. The phenomenon was dubbed the Relative Age Effect when further investigation showed the same pattern of birth date distribution existed amongst professional players.
The Relative Age Effect is the long term result of the subtle favouring of more physically mature children that occurs when children are grouped together by age for sport. It’s easy to forget who’s the youngest or the oldest in the group and as motor skills, co-ordination, speed and size are highly correlated to age in children, coaches and athletes alike mistake physical maturity for greater ability. Those children who are thought to be more talented receive more attention and more playing time, advantages that quietly accumulate into real differences in skill over the many years it takes to become an expert athlete. The talent pool becomes smaller as children discouraged by their apparent lack of ability relative to their more mature peers are more inclined to drop out.
Most studies of the Relative Age Effect focused on team sports however an analysis of the birthdates of Fencers registered with the South West Regional Talent Development Centre and of British Fencing’s national age group development squads shows it exists in individual sports too.
Although Olympic Fencers peak in their mid to late twenties, most Fencers in the South West take up the sport at around 8 years of age. They are recruited to the sport most often through either family involvement or through primary school based programmes. Four of the five female Fencers recruited from primary school programmes were born in Q4 (October - December) and would have been the most physically mature in their school year when they were
introduced to the sport.
Download the below pdf for the full report
|
