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Embarking on a journey: a bibliometric analysis of the relative age effect in sport science

Der Beginn einer Reise: eine bibliometrische Analyse des relativen Alterseffekts in der Sportwissenschaft

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Abstract

The early identification and development of talented athletes has become increasingly popular in youth sport. However, such approaches may lead to undesired, biased practices. One such selection bias is relative age effect (RAE) which results in certain (dis)advantages for athletes based on their date of birth. Despite the growing interest in RAE in sports, no bibliometric analysis has been conducted to determine the publication trends. The purpose of this study was to provide a holistic view of research activity on RAE in sport sciences to identify publication trends, patterns, evolution of the field and progress over time. The analyses focused on the number of publications, document types, institutions, authors, journals, countries, continents and sports. Then, network visualization maps regarding keywords and authors were created. Our search yielded 281 publications which were predominantly from Europe (62.14%) followed by North America (22.19%), while Canada was the most productive country with 19.22% of all publications. Moreover, research mostly focused on soccer followed by ice hockey and basketball. The most frequently used keywords were as follows: relative age effect, talent identification and talent development. An increasing trend regarding the number of studies on RAE was noted with the year 2018 reaching the peak. This study offers insight into publication trends, patterns, and hot spots on RAE research in sport. Furthermore, it will help researchers to identify research frontiers and overlooked concepts for further studies in RAE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Coaching Education, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Akdeniz University, 07058, Antalya, Turkey

    Mert Bilgiç & Ali Işın

  2. Institute of Health Sciences, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Mert Bilgiç & Ali Işın

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  1. Mert Bilgiç
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  2. Ali Işın
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Conceptualization: Mert Bilgiç and Ali Işın; Methodology: Ali Işın; Formal analysis and investigation: Mert Bilgiç and Ali Işın; Writing—original draft preparation: Ali Işın and Mert Bilgiç; Writing—review and editing: Mert Bilgiç and Ali Işın; Resources: Mert Bilgiç.

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Correspondence to Ali Işın.

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M. Bilgiç and A. Işın declare that they have no competing interests.

For this article no studies with human participants or animals were performed by any of the authors. All studies mentioned were in accordance with the ethical standards indicated in each case.

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Bilgiç, M., Işın, A. Embarking on a journey: a bibliometric analysis of the relative age effect in sport science. Ger J Exerc Sport Res 53, 325–332 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-021-00792-w

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