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When “where” is more important than “when”: Birthplace and birthdate effects on the achievement of sporting expertise

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Sports Sciences, October 2006
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (98th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (83rd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
5 news outlets
twitter
9 X users
wikipedia
2 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
240 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
359 Mendeley
connotea
1 Connotea
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Title
When “where” is more important than “when”: Birthplace and birthdate effects on the achievement of sporting expertise
Published in
Journal of Sports Sciences, October 2006
DOI 10.1080/02640410500432490
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jean Côté, Dany J. Macdonald, Joseph Baker, Bruce Abernethy

Abstract

In this study, we assessed whether contextual factors related to where or when an athlete is born influence their likelihood of playing professional sport. The birthplace and birth month of all American players in the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and Professional Golfer's Association, and all Canadian players in the National Hockey League were collected from official websites. Monte Carlo simulations were used to verify if the birthplace of these professional athletes deviated in any systematic way from the official census population distribution, and chi-square analyses were conducted to determine whether the players' birth months were evenly distributed throughout the year. Results showed a birthplace bias towards smaller cities, with professional athletes being over-represented in cities of less than 500,000 and under-represented in cities of 500,000 and over. A birth month/relative age effect (in the form of a distinct bias towards elite athletes being relatively older than their peers) was found for hockey and baseball but not for basketball and golf. Comparative analyses suggested that contextual factors associated with place of birth contribute more influentially to the achievement of an elite level of sport performance than does relative age and that these factors are essentially independent in their influences on expertise development.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 9 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 359 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 5 1%
Portugal 3 <1%
Spain 2 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Sweden 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Singapore 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Unknown 344 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 69 19%
Student > Bachelor 62 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 53 15%
Student > Postgraduate 23 6%
Student > Doctoral Student 21 6%
Other 78 22%
Unknown 53 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Sports and Recreations 203 57%
Psychology 28 8%
Social Sciences 14 4%
Medicine and Dentistry 10 3%
Nursing and Health Professions 8 2%
Other 30 8%
Unknown 66 18%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 50. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 August 2023.
All research outputs
#836,087
of 25,303,733 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Sports Sciences
#261
of 4,036 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,261
of 82,536 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Sports Sciences
#3
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,303,733 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,036 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 82,536 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.