Investigating the relationship between the relative age effect and leadership behaviors among male ice hockey players

Abstract

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

Exploring the relationship between the relative age effect and youth development among male house league ice hockey players

“…Outside of sport, relatively older high school students have been found to hold leadership roles more often and obtain more leadership experience prior to graduation (Dhuey & Lipscomb, 2008). In light of the current findings and the similar results of Chittle, Horton, Weir, and Dixon (2015) it appears that relatively younger and older hockey players demonstrate similar leadership behaviors, possibly due to their participation in house league sport. If sport provides opportunities that are transferrable to other life contexts, the impact of relative age may diminish.…”

Examining the Role of Relative Age on Leadership Behaviours among Female Ice Hockey Players: An Exploratory Investigation

“…Given that prior education research suggested that relative age may impact leadership opportunities (Dhuey & Lipscomb, 2008), we anticipated that the relatively youngest may be less likely to display leadership behaviors, particularly in sports where RAEs have been common. However, we found that the frequency with which athletes engage in specific Note: Wilks' Lambda = 0.943, X 2 (5) = 13.982, p = 0.016; * significantly discriminated between formal and informal leaders leadership behaviors did not differ across quartile of birth, which aligns with the research conducted on male travel and house league players (Chittle et al, 2017;Chittle et al, 2017a). Failing to reject the null hypothesis may be a positive finding as it suggests that relative age may not be impacting athlete leadership engagement.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there have only been two prior studies that have examined the influence of relative age on the leadership behaviors of athletes, with these projects targeting male ice hockey players (Chittle, Horton, & Dixon, 2017;Chittle, Horton, Weir, & Dixon, 2017a). Chittle et al (2017a) examined house league male ice hockey players and found no significant differences in leadership behaviors across birth quartiles. Similarly, for competitive male ice hockey players, relative age did not appear to influence the frequency with which they exhibited leadership behaviors (Chittle et al, 2017).…”

“…Both of these studies were exploratory in nature and included only male samples. Since sex is considered an important individual constraint that can influence the RAE profile (Wattie, Schorer, Baker, 2015), there is merit in extending the work of Chittle et al (2017a) by examining how relative age influences the leadership behaviors of competitive female ice hockey players.…”

“…Acceptable internal consistency values (e.g., Loughead & Hardy, 2005;Vincer & Loughead, 2010), convergent validity (e.g., Paradis & Loughead, 2012;Vincer & Loughead, 2010), and factorial validity (e.g., Vincer & Loughead, 2010) have been demonstrated when using the LSS to assess athlete leadership. Participants self-rated their own leadership behaviors using the LSS, which has been successfully employed among intercollegiate athletes (Crozier et al, 2017) and male ice hockey players (Chittle et al, 2017;Chittle et al, 2017a). As such, a modified stem that reads "On my team, I..." preceded each item and some items were slightly modified to ensure an appropriate context for athletes' self-evaluations and the comprehension level of the sample.…”