Expertise effects on decision-making in sport are constrained by requisite response behaviours – A meta-analysis

Objectives: A quantitative review of the effects of requisite responses and methods of stimulus presentation for assessing decision-making expertise in sport was undertaken.

Design: An electronic literature search was conducted in the online databases: SPORTDiscus with Full Text and ISI Web Knowledge All Databases. Articles for analysis were selected according to prior defined criteria.

Methods: We considered 111 effect sizes in studies involving 882 expert and non-expert participants. Effect sizes were calculated for six common protocols for measures responses: verbalized knowledge, eye movement measures, decision time, response accuracy, movement accuracy, and movement time. Two moderator variables were also considered to assess effects of research protocols on the dependent variables: “the requisite response” and “stimulus presentation”. A random effect model was used to calculate effect sizes.

Results: Analysis of moderator variables suggested that expertise effects were more apparent for “requisite responses” when participants were required to actually perform sporting actions and for “stimulus presentation” under in situ task constraints than for other conditions.

Conclusions: Future empirical work on expertise and decision-making needs to consider task representativeness in considering requisite responses of participants in simulating performance environment conditions. Use of representative task constraints with performers required to perform sport actions in in situ conditions appeared the most functional empirical protocols to enhance validity of data.