By John Considine
Earlier this week, as I was grading summer examination papers, Seamus Coffey sent me the following statistical output on the Cork - Waterford, Munster Senior Hurling Championship game. The output was produced by Ray Boyne (here). It is an example of what inter-county teams use to examine their performance (Ray was involved with the Dublin senior footballers for a number of years). Of course, the statistical and video analysis that is conducted by teams goes much deeper than what is presented below. Last January, I attended a presentation organised by Avenir Sports on the type of work they do with inter-county teams. In the presentation, Sean O'Donnell outlined the extensive work done analysing the playing and training performances of the Cork senior hurling team. I was left pondering the gap between the statistical analysis on academic performance and those of sporting performance. While academic assessment practices are improving, they could benefit from a look at the sporting world.
At a minimum GAA teams would have the above type of material to them before their next training session (usually two days later). Timely and detailed feedback is followed by planned performance improvement. A pretty good system. Unfortunately, a portion of academic assessment falls short of timely and detailed feedback. Sometime this is a function of student numbers and the lack of technological supports. However, there are some technological developments helping to facilitate academic performance improvement. For example, in economics there are systems like MyEconLab and Aplia. The latter was developed by Paul Romer.
Romer's thinking about the crossover between performance assessment in sport, and that in the study of economics, is discussed by David Warsh in his book Knowledge and The Wealth of Nations. Romer believes that students need a coach, and that as a coach what he "needed was the equivalent of a stopwatch, or a heart-rate monitor - some way of gauging their performance and discovering which areas needed work". As a result, Romer developed an online assessment system for students of economics that allows them to assess their knowledge and receive immediate feedback. Aplia is limited in its application and is far from providing a silver bullet for students of economics (see an evaluation of its potential here is a piece by Brendan Kennelly, Darragh Flannery and myself). However, Aplia and MyEconLab do provide another support mechanism in evaluating student performance and providing timely feedback.
Romer's thinking about the crossover between performance assessment in sport, and that in the study of economics, is discussed by David Warsh in his book Knowledge and The Wealth of Nations. Romer believes that students need a coach, and that as a coach what he "needed was the equivalent of a stopwatch, or a heart-rate monitor - some way of gauging their performance and discovering which areas needed work". As a result, Romer developed an online assessment system for students of economics that allows them to assess their knowledge and receive immediate feedback. Aplia is limited in its application and is far from providing a silver bullet for students of economics (see an evaluation of its potential here is a piece by Brendan Kennelly, Darragh Flannery and myself). However, Aplia and MyEconLab do provide another support mechanism in evaluating student performance and providing timely feedback.
The above sporting statistics and assessment systems are only scratching the surface when compared to the way such data is used in other settings. An example of how F1 use an almost unimaginable amount of performances statistics is explained in a TED talk by Peter van Manen (here). The skills involved have been put to good use outside of F1. Van Manen explains how they used their expertise in data analysis to help monitor the health of babies in life and death situations.
As time passes, we can expect the the use of sporting statistics to increase. However, they are unlikely to prove a short-cut to success on the field. They can be a useful supplement to hard work rather than a substitute for it. In my experience, individuals who seek out new methods as a means of reducing their effort come unstuck. It is those that use new method to improve their performance that accumulate the benefits.
I hope that not too much time will pass before we can see further improvements in the assessment systems in academia.
As time passes, we can expect the the use of sporting statistics to increase. However, they are unlikely to prove a short-cut to success on the field. They can be a useful supplement to hard work rather than a substitute for it. In my experience, individuals who seek out new methods as a means of reducing their effort come unstuck. It is those that use new method to improve their performance that accumulate the benefits.
I hope that not too much time will pass before we can see further improvements in the assessment systems in academia.
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