This study examined the role of relative age on leadership behaviors among male house league ice hockey players. Athletes completed an online survey that solicited their birthdate along with their responses to the leadership scale for sport. As expected, the results of our analyses revealed no relative age effects. Captains scored significantly higher on the training and instruction, democratic behavior and social support dimensions of the leadership scale for sport. While there were significant multivariate differences between birth quartile and the dimensions of leadership, a relative weight analysis revealed that quartile of birth did not differ significantly on any of these dimensions. Thus, male house league hockey players are not (dis)advantaged in terms of their leadership behaviors as a consequence of relative age.
Keywordsice hockey, leadership, leadership scale for sport, relative age effect, youth sportThe path to expertise is multifaceted, and is influenced by many primary and secondary factors. Primary influences (i.e. genetics, training and psychological factors) have a direct impact on sport expertise development, while secondary influences (i.e. sociocultural and contextual factors) play an indirect role. Often, these relevant secondary factors can be overlooked (Baker and Horton, 2004). 'Relative age' is an important contextual variable that may influence one's access to knowledgeable coaching (secondary factor) thus affecting time spent in high quality training (primary factor). When organizations implement an arbitrary cut-off date (e.g. 1 January) for grouping children to
Mentoring has typically been studied in business environments, with fewer studies focusing on academic contexts and even fewer in the field of sport management. This study examined the mentoring relationships, and specifically the mentoring functions that occurred among sport management doctoral dissertation advisors (mentors) and their doctoral students (protégés). Semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with 13 individuals. Participants collectively described examples of all of Kram’s (1988) mentoring functions, with coaching, counseling, and exposure and visibility cited most frequently. Fewer instances of protection and direct sponsorship were mentioned, although there was evidence of considerable indirect sponsorship. Protégés provided more examples of role modeling as compared with their mentors, and the entire process of completing a doctoral degree can be viewed as a challenging assignment. A discussion of these findings within the context of the relevant previous academic literature and suggestions for future research are also provided.
This investigation makes three noteworthy contributions to literature on the Relative Age Effect (RAE); 1) it adds to the small number of studies in women's sports, 2) it is one of very few papers to examine the RAE in intercollegiate athletics, and 3) it (re-)introduces "academic timing" to the discussion of RAEs in this context. The 50 top-ranked NCAA Division I women's softball teams at the conclusion of the 2011 season served as the focus for this investigation. Student-athletes were grouped into quartiles according to their birth date and identified as "on-time" or "academically delayed" based on their birth year and eligibility status. On-time student-athletes were over four times more likely to be born in quartile one than in quartile four, demonstrating a traditional RAE. This pattern was reversed for those who were academically delayed, with quartile four birth dates constituting more than half of the entire sample.
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