Ideas for Standardisation in Relative Age Effect (RAE) Reporting

Usually the questions being answered in a RAE research paper are something like:

1. Do you have RAE in this context & how much of a problem is it?
2. How does this relate to previous research in this context?
3. Therefore what are the discussion points, conclusions & limitations?

Drawing comparisons or trying to replicate previous results requires some level of ‘standardisation’ of reporting to sensibly enable this. However, frequent differences in RAE reporting make these comparisons problematic.

For example just presenting RAEi without showing Birth Quarter (BQ) data can hide important understanding. Although RAEi is our most accurate measure, it could report the very different BQ profiles of 50:0:0:50 & 0:50:50:0, as 0.50 and we would be none the wiser.

Here are 9 ideas that try to improve methods, terminology, multi year group analysis & general principles.

1. All papers should report actual numbers & percentages for Birth Quarter & Half Year as well as RAEi data.
2. Maintain an online database of cut-off dates for all sports/education for every country.
3. A sport’s cut-off date takes precedence over education if they are different. 
4. ‘Late born’ are defined as being born in the 2nd half of the year, otherwise be specific about a BQ.
5. Split multi year groups by their constituent years (1,2 or 3 for example)
6. Each constituent year has its own RAE profile.
7. Try to include contextual, confounding factors … maturation, training age, genetics.
8. When comparing junior/senior RAE, split senior cohorts into phases (perhaps tertiles by age for example).
9. Try to utilise anthropometric, psychological & performance measures as well as just selection percentages.