ArticlePediatric reports2021
Relative Age Effect in Physical Fitness during the Elementary School Years.
Article in Pediatric reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- A school-level randomized preliminary study of in-classroom physical activity breaks among fifth graders.Journal of exercise science and fitness · 2026Article
- Associations between physical activity and physical fitness in preschool children: gender and age differences.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Physical Fitness Level in 9-11-Year-Old Italian Children Is Affected by Body Mass Index and Frequency of Sport Practice but Not by Peak Height Velocity and Relative Age Effect.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The role of relative age effects in generic motor skill diagnostics using the German motor test (6-18): diagnostic outcomes and recruitment of 9-10-year-old children to sports schools in Germany.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Can the Components of Physical Fitness Be Linked to Creative Thinking and Fluid Intelligence in Spanish Schoolchildren?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Associations Between Relative Age, Siblings, and Motor Competence in Children and Adolescents.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Relative Age Effect (RAE) According to Norm Values on Anthropometric Performance and Physical Fitness in 9-11-Year-Old Children.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
- The Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) relative age solutions project-part two: an adapted e-Delphi study.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Associations between Agility, the Relative Age Effect, Siblings, and Digit Ratio (D2:D4) in Children and Adolescents.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The birthplace and relative age effects in Brazilian olympic athletes: a cross-national comparison.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Age-groups are commonly implemented in education and sports in order to provide fair and equal opportunities. Various studies, however, have shown a competitive advantage for early born children over their relatively younger peers, which is referred to as relative age effect. The present study examined differences in various components of physical fitness in Austrian elementary-school children. A total of 18,168 children (51% boys) between 6 and 11 years of age provided valid data on anthropometric characteristics and physical fitness. Specifically, children completed eight fitness tests that assessed cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and power, speed, agility, flexibility and object control. Across age-specific quartiles, older children were significantly taller and heavier than their younger peers. Older children also displayed better performance for strength and power, speed, agility and object control, while differences in cardio-respiratory endurance were less pronounced. These results highlight the presence of a relative age effect during the elementary school years and emphasize the need to consider individual differences in the evaluation of children's performance. As all children should be given equal opportunities to engage successfully in physical education and sports, physical education teachers and youth coaches need to be educated on the implications of a relative age effect.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.