Purpose

Monitoring maturation facilitates effective talent development. Various methods of maturity estimation exist with limited knowledge of concordance between methods. This study aims to establish agreement between methods of varied constructs to predict maturity status and compare concordance of methods to categorise players using established thresholds.

Methods

This study compared four maturity equations using anthropometrical data from 113 male adolescent soccer players (mean ±SD; age, 14.3 ± 1 years) from two academies. Conservative (±1 year) and less conservative (±0.5 years) circa-PHV thresholds were employed.

Results

Analysis indicates tight (±0.3 year) agreement between maturity offset methods (MO), but broader agreement between MO and predicted adult height methods (–1.5 to 1 year). However, Kappa Cohen k suggests moderate to substantial (44%–67%) and fair to moderate (31%–60%) concordance between methods when using the conservative and less conservative circa-PHV thresholds respectively.

Conclusion

Despite MO equation iterations claiming to reduce systematic error, they provide very similar estimations. Additionally, practitioners should not use maturity offset and predicted adult height methods interchangeably and are encouraged to apply either method consistently when looking to estimate maturity status or biologically calssify players.

中文翻译：

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估计青少年足球运动员的体细胞成熟度：方法比较

目的

监测成熟度有助于有效的人才发展。存在各种成熟度估计方法，但对方法之间一致性的了解有限。本研究旨在建立不同结构的方法之间的一致性，以预测成熟度状态，并比较使用既定阈值对玩家进行分类的方法的一致性。

方法

本研究使用来自两个学院的 113 名青少年男性足球运动员（平均值±标准差；年龄，14.3±1 岁）的人体测量数据比较了四个成熟度方程。采用保守（±1 年）和不太保守（±0.5 年）的 circa-PHV 阈值。

结果

分析表明成熟度补偿方法 (MO) 之间存在紧密（±0.3 年）的一致性，但 MO 与预测成年身高方法（–1.5 到 1 年）之间的一致性更广泛。然而，Kappa Cohen k建议，当分别使用保守和不太保守的 circa-PHV 阈值时，方法之间存在中度至显着 (44%–67%) 和一般至中度 (31%–60%) 的一致性。

结论

尽管 MO 方程迭代声称可以减少系统误差，但它们提供了非常相似的估计。此外，从业者不应交替使用成熟度偏移和预测成人身高方法，并鼓励在评估成熟度状态或从生物学上对球员进行生物分类时一致地应用任何一种方法。