Unequal Competition as an Impediment to Personal Development: A Review of the Relative Age Effect in Sport☆

By J. Musch, Simon L. Grondin. 2001

884 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0da1a2681e060e4b1d616e4415740abbc3765a89

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. J. Côté
2. David J. Hancock
3. J. Fraser-Thomas
4. J. Baker
5. J. Deakin
6. D. Collins
7. S. Cobley
8. Keith Davids

In Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

1. J. Côté
2. J. Fraser-Thomas
3. David J. Hancock
4. Keith Davids
5. J. Baker
6. Duarte Araújo
7. N. Delorme
8. S. Cobley

In Social Psychology

1. J. Côté
2. David J. Hancock
3. J. Fraser-Thomas
4. J. Deakin
5. J. Baker
6. D. Collins
7. S. Cobley
8. Keith Davids

Citations in the corpus

• Selection Bias and Peer Effects in Team Sports (2007, background): “The problem of selection bias as a function of children’s month-of-birth has been analysed extensively in the sports sciences literature on the so-called Relative Age Effects (RAE) ( Musch and Grondin, 2001, gives a review).”
• The rise of the underdog? The relative age effect reversal among Canadian-born NHL hockey players: A reply to Nolan and Howell (2012, methodology): “Using publically available data of hockey players from 2000–2009, we find that the relative age effect, as described by Nolan and Howell (2010) and Gladwell (2008), is moderate for the average Canadian National Hockey League player and reverses when examining the most elite professional players (i.”
• Annual Age-Grouping and Athlete Development (2009, background): “height and weight) classification,([14,21]) similar to that routinely adopted in boxing and wrestling.”
• Circumstantial development and athletic excellence: The role of date of birth and birthplace (2009, background): “In their review, Musch and Grondin ( 2001 ) suggested these attainment differentials in sport were the result of physical maturation differences between individuals during growth and development (i.”
• Compromising Talent: Issues in Identifying and Selecting Talent in Sport (2018, background): “Over-representations of relatively older players have been consistently observed in a variety of sports (for reviews, see Cobley, Baker, Wattie, & McKenna, 2009; Musch & Grondin, 2001).”
• The benefits of a long-lens approach to leader development: Understanding the seeds of leadership (2011, neutral): “In Malcolm Gladwell's (2008) book Outliers, he summarized research about the success that soccer and hockey players enjoy just by being older than others on their teams (Musch & Grondin, 2001).”
• Is Early Learning Really More Productive? The Effect of School Starting Age on School and Labor Market Performance (2005, neutral): “There is also a substantial literature documenting the importance of season of birth for success in sports; see Musch and Grondin (2001) for a survey.”
• Hockey success and birth date: The relative age effect revisited (2010, result): “Other studies in the same vein with similar results were Barnsley et al. on youth soccer players (1992); Musch and Grondin (2001) on the effect as a worldwide phenomenon; Hurley et al. (2001) for NHL players on the training camp rosters of the 1996–7 season; Glamser and Vincent (2004) youth soccer…”
• Evidence-based policies for youth sport programmes (2016, background): “In fact, overemphasizing performance can lead to early stratification of youth sport competitive levels, which might perpetuate relative age effects (participation or performance advantages for athletes born early in the selection year; Musch and Grondin 2001).”
• Examining Adolescent Sport Dropout and Prolonged Engagement from a Developmental Perspective (2008, background): “While the most obvious explanation for this effect is differences in individuals’ physical maturity, Musch and Grondin (2001) suggested that psychological factors, training opportunities, and competition experiences may also contribute to this effect.”
• The Standard Model of Talent Development and Its Discontents (2013, background): “…talent identification, as opposed to its development (Vaeyens et al., 2008), such as relative age effect (Helsen, Hodges, Van Winckel et al., 2000; Musch & Grondin, 2001), the unpredictability of childhood-to-adult physical measures and childhood-to-adult performance standards (Abbott, Collins,…”
• Relative age effect in elite sports: Methodological bias or real discrimination? (2010, background): “), Spain (González Aramendi, 2007), France and the Netherlands (Verhulst, 1992), Australia, Brazil, Germany, and Japan (Musch & Hay, 1999). Faced to this consistent set of results in elite sport, Musch and Grondin (2001, 163) conclude their review of the literature stating that “taken together, ”
• Relative Age Effect and chi-squared statistics (2015, background): “Others argue that sport should facilitate every child’s blossoming and health (e.g. Musch and Grondin, 2001).”
• The relative age effect in youth soccer across Europe (2005, background): “Unfortunately, as children are separated into age groups there are invariably cognitive, physical and emotional differences between the youngest and the oldest ones (Malina, 1994; Musch & Grondin, 2001; Williams, Davies, Evans, & Ferguson, 1970).”