October 2010 Talent Development & Excellence Official Journal of the Guest Editors: Joseph Baker Jörg Schorer Editors-in-Chief: Albert Ziegler Jiannong Shi This journal Talent Development and Excellence is the official scholarly peer reviewed journal of the International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence (IRATDE). The articles contain original research or theory on talent development, expertise, innovation, or excellence. The Journal is currently published twice annually. All published articles are assessed by a blind refereeing process and reviewed by at least two independent referees. Editors-in-Chief are Prof. Albert Ziegler, Ulm University, Germany, and Prof. Jiannong Shi of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bejing. Manuscripts can be submitted electronically to either of them or to [email protected]. Articles will be submitted for abstracting and indexing in Academic Search; Australian Education Index (AEI); British Education Index; Contents Pages in Education; EBSCO Online; EBSCO CD Rom Database; Education Journal; Educational Research Abstracts online (ERA); ERIC; e-psyche; ERIH (European Reference Index for the Humanities, Pedagogical and Educational Research); Gifted and Talented Abstracts; IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences); IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences); ISI Social and Behavioural Sciences; National Database for Research into International Education (NDRI); psycINFO; PsychLit; Psychological Abstracts; Research into Higher Education Abstracts and Social Science Citation Index. Editors-in-Chief: Albert Ziegler, University of Ulm, Germany Jiannong Shi, Academy of Sciences, Beijng, China Editorial Assistant: Bettina Harder, University of Ulm, Germany International Advisory Board: Ai-Girl Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Marion Porath, University of British Columbia, Canada Barbara Schober, University of Vienna, Austria Osamah Ma'ajeeni, King Abdul Aziz University, Saudi- Carmen M. Cretu, University of IASI, Romania Arabia Elena Grigorenko, Yale University, USA Peter Merrotsy, University of New England, Australia Hans Gruber, University of Regensburg, Germany Petri Nokelainen, University of Tampere, Finland Ivan Ferbežer, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Robert Sternberg, Tufts University, USA Javier Tourón, University of Navarra, Spain Wilma Vialle, University of Wollongong, Australia Mantak Yuen, University of Hong Kong, P.R. China Wolfgang Schneider, University of Würzburg, Germany Ad-hoc Reviewers: Arne Gülich, Technical University of Kaiserslautern Kurt A. Heller, University of Munich Bob Malina, Tarleton State University Marije Elferink-Gemser, University of Groningen Bruce Abernethy, University of Hong Kong Markus Dresel, University of Augsburg Christina Janning, Westfälische Wilhelms-University Markus Raab, German Sport University Cologne Münster Martin Lames, Technical University Munich Damian Farrow, Victoria University Michel Raspaud, Joseph Fourier University Grenoble Dany MacDonald, Queens University Nick Wattie, Leeds Metropolitain University Detlef Urhahne, University of Munich Nicolas Delorme, Joseph Fourier University Grenoble Diane Ste-Marie, University of Ottawa Norbert Hagemann, University of Kassel Duarte Araujo, Technical University of Lisbon Owen Lo, University of British Columbia Florian Loffing, University of Kassel Patricia Weir, University of Windsor Heiner Rindermann, University of Graz Paul Ford, Liverpool John Moores University Ilka Seidel, Technical University of Karlsruhe Rebecca Rienhoff, Westfälische Wilhelms-University Jane Logan, York University Münster Jessica Fraser-Thomas, York University Richard Lange, National Louis University Juanita Weissensteiner, Australian Institute of Sport Sarah Jeffrey-Tosoni, York University Kevin Till, Leeds Metropolitan University Sean Horton, University of Windsor Klaus Urban, University of Hannover Steve Cobley, Leeds Metropolitan University Klaus Völker, Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster Impressum: V.i.S.d.P.: Albert Ziegler, St.Veit-Str. 25, 81673 München, Germany Talent Development & Excellence Volume 2 Number 2 2010 Contents Identification and Development of Talent in Sport – Introduction to the Special 119 Issue J. Baker and J. Schorer A Multi-Factorial Examination of the Development of Skill Expertise in High 123 Performance Netball D. Farrow The Development of Fast Bowling Experts in Australian Cricket 137 E. Phillips, K. Davids, I. Renshaw and M. Portus A Look Through the Rear View Mirror: Developmental Experiences and 149 Insights of High Performance Athletes J. P. Gulbin, K. E. Oldenziel, J. R. Weissensteiner and F. Gagné The Role of Ecological Constraints on Expertise Development 165 D. Araújo, C. Fonseca, K. Davids, J. Garganta, A. Volossovitch, R. Brandão and R. Krebs Relative Age and Birthplace Effects in Division 1 Players – Do They Exist in a 181 Small Country? R. Lidor, J. Côté, M. Arnon, A. Zeev and S. Cohen-Maoz Anthropometric, Physiological and Selection Characteristics in High 193 Performance UK Junior Rugby League Players K. Till, S. Cobley, J. O’Hara, C. Chapman and C. Cooke Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey – Evidence of a Relative Age Effect 209 P. L. Weir, K. L. Smith, C. Paterson and S. Horton Talent Development & Excellence Introduction to the Special Issue 119 Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010, 119-121 Identification and Development of Talent in Sport – Introduction to the Special Issue Joseph Baker1 and Jörg Schorer2 Identifying and developing talented individuals is an important element of education, music, and art, but no field has embraced the concept as tenaciously as sport. Indeed, understanding the qualities that underpin elite or expert performance and facilitating their development is the cornerstone of the sport sciences. Organized programs of talent identification and development (TID) can be traced to the 1950s. The earliest successes came from countries of the Eastern Block such as the German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union, Romania and Bulgaria with Australia, China and the United States demonstrating more recent success. Perhaps due to this success, many countries have adopted national or sport-specific talent identification programs. In recent years, countries such as Australia, for the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, and the United Kingdom, for the London 2012 Games, have orchestrated vast talent identification and development programs. In Australia, a deliberate programming approach was taken and resulted in an improvement in overall medals from 27 in 1992 to 41 in 1996 and 58 in 2000 (an increase of 114% in just 8 years). The notion that increased resources (financial and otherwise) will produce increased results is not particularly noteworthy; however, the more interesting question considering the enormous expense of programs such as this is ‘how do we determine success or failure’? Several reviews of talent development (e.g., Abbott, Button, Pepping, & Collins, 2005; Régnier, Salmela, & Russell, 1993) have suggested that the process of TID is fundamentally flawed, but despite this view national sport governing bodies continue to invest substantial resources to this effort. Due to the considerable attention given to issues of TID worldwide, the intent of this special issue was to provide a reflection of the high caliber research currently being conducted with the hopes of improving the understanding of researchers, coaches, and policy makers working in this domain. Thanks to the excellent work of our colleagues, we believe we have succeeded. In addition to contributions from top research labs throughout the world (the ‘usual suspects’ in these types of special issues), we have contributions from researchers working within existing TID programs reporting their successes and failures. Collectively, this research will not only improve the dissemination of knowledge from the academic centre to the TID front lines, but it will also be important for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches. Readers of the special issue will notice two clear trends in TID research. The first is the significant theoretical variability. The first four papers in this issue argue on the basis of models by Ericsson (Farrow), Simonton (Phillips et al.), Gagné (Gulbin et al.), and Bronfenbrenner (Araújo et al.). The next three papers (Lidor et al.; Till et al.; Weir et al.) explore what Baker and Horton (2004) termed ‘secondary influences’ on athlete development. This diversity in theoretical foundations reflects the inherent complexity of this research topic and the variety of approaches taken in TID research. This variety is also represented in the methodological approaches taken by researchers in this field. In addition to traditional expert/non-expert approaches (Farrow), this special issue includes qualitative interviews (Phillips et al.), large scale surveys (Gulbin et al.) secondary analysis of existing data (Lidor et al.; Weir et al.) and quasi-longitudinal investigations (Till et al.) in addition to the more ethnographic examination considered by Araújo et al. Readers will also notice the obvious imbalance towards issues of talent development rather than talent identification. Four of the seven papers in this issue clearly focus on 1 York University Toronto, Canada 2 Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany ISSN 1869-0459 (print)/ ISSN 1869-2885 (online) 2010 International Research Association for Talent Development