ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Physical Education and Pedagogy
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1608680
This article is part of the Research TopicRelative Age Effect in Sports: Talent Identification, Performance, and Fair PracticesView all 4 articles
Sports participation and sex outweigh the relative age effect in motor competence of school-aged children
Provisionally accepted
Fábio Saraiva Flôres1
Denise Soares2*
Ana Filipa Silva3
Nuno Martins4
Gabriela Almeida1
José Marmeleira1
Dimitar Shabanliyski2- 1University of Evora, Évora, Portugal
- 2American University of the Middle East, Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 3Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Viana do Castelo, Viana do Castelo, Portugal
- 4Instituto Piaget, Viseu, Portugal
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Background: The Relative Age Effect (RAE) refers to the advantage in physical and psychological development that children born earlier in the year often experience, which can influence their participation in sports. Aim: Analyze the influence of RAE on motor competence (MC) in school-aged children, focusing on differences across birth quartiles and types of sports participation. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 1031 children aged 12.02 ± 2.95 years, stratified by birth quartile (Q1 – Q4) and sports participation. MC was assessed using the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) test battery. Statistical analyses included one-way ANOVA and a three-way MANCOVA. Results: Participants born in Q1 exhibited significantly higher MC scores compared to those born in Q3 and Q4, particularly in the Manipulative domain (p < 0.05, η² = 0.01). Sports participation had the strongest effect (p < 0.01, η² = 0.10), with participants in team sports demonstrating higher MC across all domains. Boys outperformed girls in Manipulative skills (p < 0.01, η² = 0.12). Furthermore, the interaction between birth quartile, sports participation, and sex was also significant (p = 0.02, η² = 0.01), indicating that the influence of RAE on MC depends on additional contextual factors. Conclusions: While RAE had a statistically significant but small effect on MC, sports participation, particularly team sports, and sex may play more dominant roles. These findings underscore the importance of promoting equitable access to organized physical activity while considering the nuanced and context-dependent nature of the RAE.
Keywords: relative age effect, Youth, performance, Sports, Education
Received: 09 Apr 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Flôres, Soares, Silva, Martins, Almeida, Marmeleira and Shabanliyski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Denise Soares, American University of the Middle East, Kuwait City, Kuwait
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