Understanding a Player's Decision-Making Process in Team Sports: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence.

Michael Ashford,Jamie Poolton,Andrew Abraham

doi:10.3390/sports9050065

Abstract

Three perspectives were taken to explain decision-making within team sports (information processing, recognition primed decision-making, and ecological dynamics perspectives), resulting in conceptual tension and practical confusion. The aim of this paper was to interrogate empirical evidence to (1) understand the process of decision-making within team sports and (2) capture the characteristics of decision-making expertise in a team sport context. Nine electronic databases (SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, PsycTests, PubMed, SAGE journals online, Web of Knowledge, Academic Search Complete, and Web of Science) were searched until the final return in March 2021. Fifty-three articles satisfied the inclusion criteria, were analysed thematically, and synthesised using a narrative approach. Findings indicate that the relative absence or presence of mental representation within the decision-making process depends on factors, including complexity, typicality, time available, and contextual priors available in the game situation. We recommend that future research integrate concepts and methodologies prevalent within each perspective to better understand decision-making within team sports before providing implications for practitioners.

Highlights

Post-match diagnosis of team performance will often find individual or collective decision-making to be the difference between a win, loss, or draw
The thematic analysis has shaped three broad processes that align with the three perspectives: perceptual–cognitive expertise, perception-action coupling, and recognition primed decision-making, respectively
Esteves et al [52] suggested that skilled players are better able to identify opportunities for action afforded by the task environment, which is consistent with the proposal by those taking an information processing view that skilled players are better able to identify salient [70], predictive [71], global cues [61] within the context of their intended goal

Summary

Introduction

Post-match diagnosis of team performance will often find individual or collective decision-making to be the difference between a win, loss, or draw. The importance it holds leads practitioners to seek understanding of how best to develop expert decision makers. This is not easy as team sports are often seen as unpredictable [1] environments, which require players to respond effectively to uncertain situations that vary both in time and complexity [2]. The crux of the debate typically revolves around a player’s access to memory representations in the decision-making process. From an information processing account, players are seen to make decisions through a process of selection from formalised responses that are stored in memory;

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