Full Description
Individual achievement in sport is often constrained by an athlete's age relative to the peers with whom they participate. A common practice within sport and educational domains is to group youth based on their chronological ages to help promote equal competition, age appropriate instruction, and ensure participant safety. While well intended, such grouping practices can often advantage relatively older children, while disadvantaging those who are relatively younger within the same age cohort. These phenomena are known as Relative Age Effects (RAEs).
Relative Age Effects in Sport: International Perspectives includes chapters from internationally recognized scholars who have examined RAEs from different perspectives (e.g., sport, mental health and wellbeing, youth development). This new volume assists in communicating and mobilizing knowledge and research about RAEs, focusing on developing feasible and attractive solutions that capture the attention of practitioners and policy makers from sport governing bodies and creating a resource that is accessible to professionals within the sport and academic communities.
Relative Age Effects in Sport: International Perspectives is key reading for academics and researchers in the fields of athlete development, talent identification, coaching education, health and wellbeing, mental health and related disciplines, whilst also of interest to sport industry professionals such as coaches and policy makers.
Contents
1. Serendipity Strikes
2. The Relative Age Effect: Early Studies
3. Antecedents and Explanations of Relative Age Effects
4. Relative Age Effects Are Developmental! The Necessity of Looking at More Than One Time Point
5. Relative Age Effects in Female Athletes: Similarities and Differences Highlight the Nuances of This Effect... If You Know Where to Look
6. Relative Age Effects and Youth Development
7. Late Birthday Benefits: The 'Underdog Hypothesis'
8. Tackling an Age-Old Dilemma Among Student-Athletes: Academic Timing and the Relative Age Effect
9. The Relative Age Effect In Youth And Elite Sport: What Have We Learned After 20 Years of Research?
10. Approaches to Help Coaches and Talent Scouts Overcome the Relative Age Effect
11. Re-Balancing the Relative Age Effect Scales: Meta-Analytical Trends, Causes, and Corrective Adjustment Procedures as a Solution
12. Concluding Thoughts and Future Research on Relative Age Effects in Sport
