Innate talent in sport: Separating myth from reality

Twenty years ago, Howe, Davidson and Sloboda (1998) provided a state of the science review of innate talent. This paper was extremely influential although much has changed in the two decades since it was published. In this review, we revisit Howe et al’s assessment and discuss current research on innate talent in sport, a domain that was largely ignored in the original review. After re-evaluating Howe et al’s criteria for innate talent we conclude that with the exception of criterion 5 (i.e., talent is domain specific), these criteria are still useful in the context of existing evidence in sport. We subsequently examine two complementary issues: Is the concept of innate talent valid? Does the concept have any utility? We conclude the concept of innate talent is valid but currently has limited utility to those working in high performance sport. We highlight several areas of future research that will ultimately inform the value of innate talent to those working at the frontlines of athlete development

Developmental pathways of Para athletes: Examining the sporting backgrounds of elite Canadian wheelchair basketball players

This study examines developmental history data to identify common pathways for elite Para sport performance and contextualizes these findings using known models of athlete development (e.g., the Developmental Model of Sport Participation, Côté, 1999). Seventy-three Canadian wheelchair basketball players completed a modified version of the Developmental History of Athletes Questionnaire (Hopwood, 2013). Overall, the results emphasized considerable variability in measures related to ‘other’ organized sport participation regardless of disability status and competition level, including the proportion of participants that participated in at least one other sport, the number of other sports participated in, the age first participated in other sports, and the number of years spent participating in other sports. This variability suggests there may be multiple Para athlete development narratives and highlights a need for more evidence-based models that are sufficiently nuanced for this athlete cohort

A New Dimension to Relative Age Effects: Constant Year Effects in German Youth Handball

In this manuscript we argue for a broader use of the term ‘relative age effect’ due to the influence of varying development policies on the development of sport expertise. Two studies are presented on basis of data from Schorer, et al. [1]. The first showed clear ‘constant year effects’ in the German handball talent development system. A shift in year groupings for the female athletes resulted in a clear shift of birth year patterns. In the second study we investigated whether the constant year effect in the national talent development system carried over to professional handball. No patterns were observable. Together both studies show that a differentiation of varying effects that often happen simultaneously is necessary to understand the secondary mechanisms behind the development of sport expertise.<br/

Training and development in sport officials: A systematic review

Sport officials make significant contributions to organized sport, yet scientific evidence to inform their specialized training and education at various levels has lagged. While psychological and performance demands of expert sport officials have been well documented, the extent of research about talent and expertise development, training efficacy, and broader developmental trajectories is unclear. This systematic review summarizes 30 years of published findings on the study of training and development of sport officials, including areas of research interest, study designs, and sport official characteristics. A PRISMA systematic review was conducted, utilizing three scientific databases (Web of Science, SportsDiscus, PsycInfo) to identify relevant studies (N = 27). Female participants were generally underrepresented in studies (17%), while football officials were most often represented (79%). Training intervention (59%), retrospective (37%), and cross-sectional comparison (22%) were the main study designs. Expert and near-expert sport officials' training histories and responses to empirically driven isolated-skills training represented the predominant areas of study. Sport-specific, video-based infraction detection tasks were the most frequently used training methods to improve perceptual-cognitive skills for on-field decision-making, however, studies lacked retention measures to on-field performance. Psychological skills training programs were found to have mixed effects and used varied criteria for measuring training efficacy. Physical training showed mainly significant effects on physiological measures and aging influences for on-field performance. More rigorous sport-specific evidence, assessments of training transfer, program efficacy, and macro-developmental trajectory and milestone data are needed to inform training programs and developmental plans

Heterogeneity in Community Size Effects: Exploring Variations in the Production of National Hockey League Draftees Between Canadian Cities

Previous research has explored ‘community size effects’ in a multitude of sporting and regional contexts and has shown that athletes are more likely to originate from small-medium population size categories, and less likely to originate from very small or large ones. However, it is not clear whether the production of athletes is homogenous within population size categories. Place of birth data were collected for all Canadian born hockey players drafted into the National Hockey League (NHL) from 2000–2014 from British Columbia (N = 192), Alberta (N = 218), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (N = 216), Ontario (N = 561), Quebec (N = 241), and the Atlantic Provinces (N = 74). To explore variations in the production of draftees within population size categories, proportions of productive cities, population mean (μ), population standard deviation (σ), as well as minimum/maximum values of the number of draftees were calculated for the different categories (&lt;2,500; 2,500–4,999; 5,000–9,999; 10,000–29,999; 30,000–99,999; 100,000–249,999; 250,000–499,999; 500,000–999,999; &gt;1,000,000). In addition, the number of draftees produced per 1,000 residents (i.e., yield) was calculated for each city within all categories. Results showed substantial intra-categorical variability in NHL talent development; moreover, heterogeneity in draftee production existed in various degrees across provincial regions of Canada. Intra-categorical variability suggests that a single homogenous community size effect may not exist for Canadian NHL draftees, and that future research may benefit from exploring other environmental constraints on athlete development such as income, population density, and proximity to local sport clubs

Sport officiating recruitment, development, and retention: A call to action

The purpose of this article is to report on the outcome of a two-day consensus-building exercise amongst sport scientists and sport practitioners interested in the recruitment, development, and retention of sport officials.  Twenty participants including volunteers and paid employees affiliated with nine Ontario-based sport organizations, university researchers, and provincial government policy makers participated.  A consensus statement regarding this aspect of sport officiating and, more specifically, “What do we know?”, “What don’t we know?”, and “Where does the research need to go from here?” is presented.  A willingness to consider and embrace these ideas may be critical in moving sport officiating from being an understudied and undervalued segment of the sport system to receiving the attention and respect it deserves going forward

Talent Research in Sport 1990–2018:A Scoping Review

Several recent systematic and targeted reviews have highlighted limitations in our understanding of talent in sport. However, a comprehensive profile of where the scientific research has focused would help identify gaps in current knowledge. Our goal in this scoping review was (a) to better understand what others have done in the field of research (e.g., what groups have been examined using what research designs and in what areas), (b) to summarize the constituent areas of research in a meaningful way, (c) to help identify gaps in the research, and (d) to encourage future research to address these gaps. Peer-reviewed articles written in English that met several inclusion criteria were analyzed. A total of 1,899 articles were identified, and the descriptive findings revealed a relatively narrow focus of research on talent in sport. Specifically, the majority of examined articles focused on (a) males only, (b) the sport of soccer, (c) perceptual cognitive variables, (d) developing athletes, (e) adult samples, and (f) cross-sectional designs. For better or worse, the concept of talent remains a central element of how coaches, practitioners, and scientists think about athlete development. Findings from this scoping review highlight the continued need to explore issues related to talent identification, selection, and development in more diverse samples (e.g., female athletes and younger ages) and contexts (e.g., from Africa, Asia, and South America). There is also a clear necessity to focus on under-researched areas using alternative methodologies.</p

The relationship between relative age, ADHD and well-being

The relationship between relative age, ADHD and well-being Relative age effects describe a range of outcomes associated with age differences within cohorts. Predominantly, these outcomes advantage older youth within their age group cohorts. While outcomes such as academic achievement and athlete development predominate in the literature, evidence also suggests that relative age can influence health and wellbeing. For example, evidence suggests that relatively younger children may be at a greater risk of being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and subsequently medicated. This presentation will highlight research on the relative age-ADHD relationship in youth and adult populations, the potential etiology for these relationships, as well as the research, pedagogical and policy implications of these findings. The aim of this presentation is to promote critical discussion, and stimulate future directions for relative age research

Talent: A contestable, but not contested, concept? Response to commentaries

Our target article on ‘Innate talent’ had two objectives, first to acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the seminal contribution by Howe, Davidson and Sloboda (1998) and second, to update this information as it relates to talent in the domain of sport. Many thanks to all the authors that took the time to provide commentaries on our review. Broadly, our target paper focused on 1) whether the concept of innate talent was reasonable and scientifically sound and 2) whether the concept of innate talent had any utility to those working at the coalface of sport science (e.g., coaches, scouts, etc.). All of the commentaries were complimentary to our review, which suggested continued interest in this area (although this was noted as surprising by Hambrick and Burgoyne). We have tried to respond to all of the interesting points raised by the commentaries, but this was not always possible. That said, we grouped our responses under general themes below. Our impression, based on the commentaries, is that innate talent is not a contested concept; in that there appears to be agreement (for the most part) that, ‘this thing exists’. Rather, the concept of innate talent is contestable (Gallie, 1956); that is, there is debate about exactly what it is, the degree of its influence, and how useful the concept of innate talent is