Delorme N, Raspaud M
Laboratoire Sport et Environnement Social (SENS), Université J.Fourier - Grenoble 1, UFRAPS, Grenoble cedex 9, France.
Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2009 Apr;19(2):235-42. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2008.00781.x. Epub 2008 Feb 21.
The aim of this study is to test the presence of the relative age effect (RAE) and to examine height in an overall population of the young French basketball players from 7 to 18 years old, male (n=151 259) and female (n=107 101). For the boys as for the girls, the results show a statistically significant RAE in all age categories. The effect seems more pronounced during puberty. As far as the height is concerned, players born during quarters 1 and 2 are always significantly taller than those born during quarter 4, apart from the 17-year-old female players. These results require a new look at the methodology in the statistical calculation and the interpretation of RAE. A study wanting to give a precise measurement of this effect will have to take as the expected theoretical distribution the whole population of licensed players in the corresponding years, rather than one on the global population of the country. This will avoid the hasty conclusion that an asymmetric distribution of dates of birth of professional players would be due to RAE, whereas in reality it would be representative of one existing in the population of licensed players.
本研究旨在测试相对年龄效应（RAE）的存在，并对7至18岁的法国年轻篮球运动员总体人群的身高进行研究，其中男性（n = 151259），女性（n = 107101）。对于男孩和女孩，结果显示在所有年龄类别中RAE均具有统计学意义。这种效应在青春期似乎更为明显。就身高而言，除了17岁的女性球员外，第一和第二季度出生的球员总是明显高于第四季度出生的球员。这些结果需要重新审视RAE统计计算和解释中的方法。一项想要精确测量这种效应的研究必须将相应年份持牌球员的总体人群作为预期的理论分布，而不是该国全球人口的分布。这将避免草率得出职业球员出生日期的不对称分布是由于RAE的结论，而实际上它可能代表持牌球员人群中存在的一种分布。
