Discriminating talent-identified junior Australian football players using a video decision-making task. Issue 4 (16th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Woods, Carl T.; Raynor, Annette J.; Bruce, Lyndell; McDonald, Zane
• Is Part Of: Journal of sports sciences. Volume 34:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 342
• Page End: 347
• Publication Date: 2016-02-16
• Subjects: talent identification -- expert performance -- team sports -- discriminant analysis; Sports -- Periodicals; Sports -- Physiological aspects -- Periodicals; Sports -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; 612.044
• DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2015.1053512
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0264-0414

Abstract

Abstract: This study examined if a video decision-making task could discriminate talent-identified junior Australian football players from their non-talent-identified counterparts. Participants were recruited from the 2013 under 18 (U18) West Australian Football League competition and classified into two groups: talent-identified (State U18 Academy representatives; n = 25; 17.8 ± 0.5 years) and non-talent-identified (non-State U18 Academy selection; n = 25; 17.3 ± 0.6 years). Participants completed a video decision-making task consisting of 26 clips sourced from the Australian Football League game-day footage, recording responses on a sheet provided. A score of "1" was given for correct and "0" for incorrect responses, with the participants total score used as the criterion value. One-way analysis of variance tested the main effect of "status" on the task criterion, whilst a bootstrapped receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve assessed the discriminant ability of the task. An area under the curve (AUC) of 1 (100%) represented perfect discrimination. Between-group differences were evident ( P < 0.05) and the ROC curve was maximised with a score of 15.5/26 (60%) (AUC = 89.0%), correctly classifying 92% and 76% of the talent-identified and non-talent-identified participants, respectively. Future research should investigate the mechanisms leading to the superior decision-making observed in the talent-identified group.