Lecture 10: Talent identification & development

Question 1

What is talent?

Answer 1

• Natural skills
• Also about future performance = potential to become elite in future
• Performs better than peers during training + competition

Question 2

What ‘current’ factors predict future performance?

Answer 2

• Athletes conside: anthropometrical 9%, physiological 16%, technique 22%, tactics 22%, psychological 30%, other 1%
• Coaches look more at = parents, anthropometry, training
• Coaches look less at = physiology, technique, psychology

Question 3

Talent identification issues

Answer 3

• Growth/physical dev. in youth disproportionally increases impact of anthropometrical factors

Question 4

Coaches tend to select relatively older athletes

Answer 4

• Relative Age Effect
• Many talent dev. programs work with chronological age categories
• Could have people in same age category but older children would get selected
• Maturation
• Growth spurt is unpredictable = timing (12-16years)
  = duration (2-5 years)

Question 5

Minimising RAE

Answer 5

• RAE is automatic = education has minimal effects
• Strategies = shirt numbering according to age
  = adjusting scores according to age/maturation

Question 6

What distinguishes those who make it/don’t make it? (Roescher et al 2010)

Answer 6

• Successful athletes show faster & continued performance dev.
• No single performance indicator
• Retrospective reports indicate that dev. is seldom linear

Question 7

Nature or nurture?

Answer 7

• The env. talents are given
• Do you become an expert because you accumulate more hours of practice? (nurture)
• Do you accumulate more hours because you are recognised as a (potential) expert early on? (nature)
• Not about hours but about quality of hours (modern perspective)

Question 8

Early vs. late specialisation

Answer 8

• Whether to stick to one sport or sometimes implement others in
• Blocked (same sequence to practice) vs. random (same sequences repeated but others implemented in as well) practice
• Blocked may produce better performance during training but not retention
• One reason why athletes should not specialise in one sport early in their development = less pressure, not have to use memory as much
• Random practices forces ‘chunking’ of movement into LT memory

Question 9

Self-regulation of learning

Answer 9

• Planning -> monitoring -> evaluting (reflecting)
• Distinguishes between different-talented athletes
• Reflection = can be through answering Qs to see how reflective you are
• Self-regulation of learning may contribute to getting more out of same number of hours