AN ANALYSIS OF PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE - THE EVALUATION OF YOUNG HIGH-LEVEL BASKETBALL PLAYERS

The aim of this study is to analyse the nature of expertise in basket- ball selectors, those responsible for identifying potentially high-lev el basket-ballplayers. Over the last 15 years, the French Basketball F ederation has developed several tests called ''detection tests'' which the Regional Coaching Staff use to evaluate potential, in 14-year-old players. The majority of these tests focus on leg strength, an abilit y that does not show improvement through training, as the most importa nt predictor of talent. Our first step was to determine what physical information the expert selectors really considered during their evalua tions; then, we looked to see whether the tests currently employed act ually reflected these considerations. Our study is based on classic me thods used to elicit Knowledge, similar to those used for cognitive er gonomics. These methods require a detailed description of all activiti es/performances, followed by the development of a specific lexicon for studying the language of experts, and by experimentation. During this experimentation phase, 30-minute sequences of play involving 8 player s were recorded on video. A total of 9 sequences were recorded, and th ese were later viewed separately by 9 experts who each verbally record ed their evaluation of the 8 athletes. This verbal data was then analy sed using a method derived from Propositional Analysis of Discourse (P AD), a method concerned with ''expert thought''. This ''eye of the exp ert'' procedure revealed that experts actually focused on hand movemen t-dexterity, a skill which shows improvement through training. Through Geometric Data Analysis of the PDA results, each of the 8 athletes co uld be specifically placed in relation to the experts' assessment of t heir performance. Additionally, the results of a three-year follow-up study of 265 individual players (8 of whom were the players of the exp erimentation and 6 of whom are now in the French national team) who we re assessed (at 14 years of age) using the Federation's detection test s showed that these tests failed to identify talented athletes. Accord ing to the ''eye of expert'', these children did nor have exceptional profiles, bur in fact were among those with the greatest hand movement -dexterity.