The Unintended Consequence of Developing Talent in Age Brackets.
From very early on in its discovery, relative age effects have been deemed hampering to personal talent development and leading to unintended consequences in talent systems.
These effects are based on the biases lasting over time, but surprisingly little research has been conducted with a developmental focus. This publication addresses this over a series of three studies within the field of Weightlifting. It demonstrates that a single look at one point in time might not tell us the whole story regarding relative age effects, that longitudinal research is necessary, and that machine learning is a must to further understand the mechanisms of this talent development bias.
Over a series of three studies, TPiD investigated the relative age effect (RAE) across an elite weightlifting pathway, in the context of individual, task, and environmental constraints.
Where previous literature has often assumed success is based on selection alone, the current research also adopted medal success as a more valid indication of attainment and performance. While it might be expected that the presence of weight categories in a sport may negate the RAE, the findings demonstrate otherwise. Specifically, RAEs were present within weight categories at different developmental stages (i.e. youth, junior, and senior), and with some gender-related differences).
Interestingly, the RAE was found to be less prevalent in male athletes who transitioned from non-medallist to medallist. Here, unsuccessful junior athletes were more likely to transition into successful medal winning lifters if they are born relatively later in the year (a late bloomer if you will). Thus, the usual pattern of relatively older athletes showing early promise does not lead to future success. Indeed, athletes are more likely to “bloom” and deliver medal success later in their career if they are born towards the end of the yearly cut-off date. This opens some very interesting questions around talent identification/scouting, selection, and development; can we confidently say are we using all available decision intelligence to inform our strategies here?
When investigating why these late bloomer effects occur, the role of psychological characteristics surrounding mastery approach, concern over mistakes, and openness to experience were key. Relatively younger athletes had higher levels of the desirable characteristics of mastery approach and openness to new experiences. Meaning they were more focused on improving aspects of their own performance (technique, tactics, preparation, and personal attributes) and more likely to seek innovative ways to achieve this in comparison to relatively older athletes. The higher mastery and open approach to training was combined with higher levels of concern over mistakes creating the perfect ‘holistic’ storm for optimal development. That is, striving to overcome performance mistakes by focusing on innovative training methods to enhance personal development was key to developing the future resilient athlete that delivers medal winning performances.
These findings have important implications for talent identification/scouting, selection, and development. Without using new technologies that permit the analysis of all data collectively, understanding of the holistic athlete profile is lost. Meaning current practice around selection and development of talent and the strategies used to transition athletes are not looking at the bigger picture as effectively as possible. For example, if we select and develop athletes for the present (i.e., scout for physically more developed athletes that can deliver performances in their current age and stage of development) we may be developing the pathway for the athlete rather than focusing on developing the athlete for the pathway. Unfortunately, if we apply our current unconscious biases around talent selection and talent potential early in a sports structure, we are reducing the talent pool and limiting our future successes. By using the TPiD system, the current research was able to provide real decision intelligence around identifying the key holistic features of the early athlete that lead to future medal winning success. In doing so, TPiD also opened discussions both surrounding biases and shortcomings in our current and long-standing section and development systems.
TPiD helps sports with the challenge of analysing and visualising their data to understand the holistic athlete and coach. Answers to your questions are based around ranking data in order of relative importance whilst simultaneously presenting the best combination of factors that best answer your question of interest. This framework produces the pattern highlighting the most important data; ‘your game changers’ so you can effectively target and strategise based on bespoke and specific evidenced based intelligence. All analyses are performed in real-time and visualised for you on your interactive user friendly and unique TPiD platform. This dynamic approach means answers to your questions change in step with both shifts in the demands of your space and strategic goals. Insights are relevant to you, always up-to-date, and visualised in an easy and actionable way.
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Images
For images, please email Lou at Talent Pathway iD, lou@talent-pathway.co.uk,
Contact Details: Talent Pathway iD
For further details, images and interview requests for TPiD, please contact: Lou Lawrence, at TPiD : Email: lou@talent-pathway.co.uk
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