Cognitive development and performance of 11‐, 13‐ and 15‐year olds on a soccer‐specific test of decision making

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The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of cognitive development, as measured by age and cognitive style combined, of 11‐, 13‐ and 15‐year‐old children on the performance of a soccer‐specific test of decision making. The children (N = 284) undertook the Group Embedded Figures Test (Witkin et al., 1971b) to determine their cognitive style: Field Dependent (FD), Field Mobile (FM), or Field Independent (FI). They were then divided into nine groups, FD, FM, and FI at each age. Analyses revealed that all of the 15‐year‐old groups were significantly better in decision‐making aptitude than the other groups, except for the FI 13‐year‐olds.The FI 13‐year‐olds performed significantly better than the FD and FM 11‐year‐olds, and FD 13‐year‐olds. It was concluded that cognitive development affects decision‐making performance. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that experience and cognitive development were moderate predictors of decision‐making performance (R 2 = .25). The study also examined the claim of Pascual‐Leone (2000) that FI, FD, and FM children use different processes to solve problems. There was no evidence to support this claim. It was concluded that the better performance of the FI participants was due to better decision‐making ability rather than differences in the types of processes used for problem solving