Longitudinal investigations of the development in handball and its association with relative age effects

Jörg Schorer ^1* Irene Faber ² Dirk Büsch ³ Joe Baker ⁴ Nick Wattie ⁵

• ¹ Department of Sport and Movement Science, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
• ² Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, Netherlands
• ³ Department of Sport and Training Science, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
• ⁴ University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• ⁵ Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

In this paper, we describe two studies on the association among long-term developmental outcomes and relative age effects. To extend or compliment the cross-sectional work done previously, these studies take different approaches to investigate the association of relative age effects on long-term development. In the first, a retrospective approach is taken, while in the second, developmental data for players over a four-year period are considered. In study 1 the association of relative age effects and later performance at the adult level is presented. The results show different patterns for females and males. In the second study, the development over four points in time during the national youth development system in handball are presented. Again, changes over time in birth quartile distribution can be seen. These studies suggest relative age researchers should embrace longitudinal designs [1; 2]. These types of approaches would allow explorations of the association of other variables with the observed relative age effects.