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Academic Assessment, Sports Statistics and Other Feedback

31/5/2014

4 Comments

 
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.
Picture
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.
Picture
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.

4 Comments
Brendan Kennelly
3/6/2014 08:48:46 am

John,

your post reminded me of this story that I read recently - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/sports/basketball/eyes-on-stats-nba-players-hire-help-to-crunch-them.html?_r=0

Reply
Ray Boyne
6/9/2015 06:56:34 pm

Great piece.

Reply
Seamus Hennessy
7/9/2015 11:48:32 am

John / Brendan / Ray
Following yesterday's All Ireland final, what importance would you attribute to the half time motivational talk that some Kilkenny players referenced post game as 'inspiring' them to a victory?
(A somewhat different to Brentford FC model employed where the manager receives a text at h-t to update the teams performance against a defined set of KPI's!http://www.atthematch.com/site/article/388)

Is statistical analysis simply a complementary tool to aid performance (I think it is) or are teams either quantitative (statistics, analysis) or qualitative (motivation, gut instinct, passion for the cause etc)?
Is the use of statistics be better served in a league style format (e.g. Premiership) where there are no knockout games to be played but rather a weekly sequence of games?

Would love to hear any insights ye would have. (Email address is seamushennessy89@gmail.com if needed)

Kind regards,
Seamus Hennessy



Are statistics to be used

Reply
John Considine
7/9/2015 09:39:42 pm

Ray/Seamus (and Brendan from last year),

Thanks for the recent comments.

I think the statistical analysis is useful where the basics are in place. No matter how good the ongoing analysis of yesterday's game, it would have been of little use unless the players brought huge levels of physical and mental courage to the table.

I'm sure the analysis that was conducted prior to the game was useful in the preparation. On occasions it may make a difference within a game (Ray talks a little about this in his RTE interview available on YouTube). But an appeal to broader principle might be more appropriate at half-time. AS Mike Tyson says "everyone has a plan until they get a punch in the face". It would be interesting to know what was going on in Colin Fennelly's head during the second-half when he played the ball off the ground twice in succession rather than just hit it away. Was it something that was said at half-time that meant he was willing to work so hard mentally and physically to maintain possession? Or was it a more basic principle that the Kilkenny lads hold?

The statistics might be useful in other ways. I heard James Horan (I think it was on Off The Ball) talking about how Mayo's strategy of conceding the Dublin kickouts in the drawn game seemed to work for Mayo. He talked about Dublin have far less successful attacks than usual. While most commentators argued that Mayo were wrong not to push up on Cluxton's kickouts, Horan provided an alternative view. I'm sure that if such information was provided to the Mayo players it would help stiffen their resolve to keep to the plan. However, the belief in the plan to start with must be there to being with. (I'm not making any judgement about what Mayo should have done.)

Away from the question about the use of stats versus inspirational speeches, I also heard an excellent use of stats by Paul Earley last week. I can't remember what radio show I heard it on but his defence of the black card and other rule changes in football illustrated what stats should be used for in the GAA. He listed the percentage decline in fouls and other cards from the period before and after the introduction. Earley convinced me with his combination of reason and supporting evidence. Prior to that I was inclined to go with conventional wisdom that the rules changes were counter productive.

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