What Is Performance? A Scoping Review of Performance Outcomes as Study Endpoints in Athletics

Abstract

Purpose: This review set out to summarise, define, and provide future direction towards the use of performance outcome measures as endpoints in research performed at international benchmark events in athletics. Methods: Scoping review methodology was applied through a search of the PubMed and Sports Discus databases and a systematic article selection procedure. Articles that met the inclusion criteria underwent triage for further quantitative and qualitative analysis. A concept chart was generated to describe the methods by which performance had been measured and introduce descriptive labels for theoretical and practical application. Results: None of 2972 articles primarily identified from the database search met the triage standards for quantitative data extraction. Eleven articles were included in a qualitative analysis. The analysis identified the common methods by which performance has been measured, reported and analysed. The resulting concept chart collates labels from the qualitative analysis (categories, themes, and constructs) with sports practice labels (performance metrics, framework, and analysis). Conclusions: The state of knowledge concerning methods to employ performance metrics as endpoints in studies performed at major competitions in athletics has been summarised. Constructing a methodology that combines the performance metric variables (continuous and ordinal) that are currently utilised as endpoints remains a challenge.

Relation of Team Size and Success With Injuries and Illnesses During Eight International Outdoor Athletics Championships

“…Injury and illness information should not be interpreted as risk indicators at the level of individual athletes (Edouard et al, 2019b ; Edouard et al, under revision). We chose number of medals and country ranking as sports performance outcome, which relates to the country and not to the individual athletes (e.g., metrics parameters, intra-personal parameters) (Drew et al, 2017 ; Raysmith et al, 2019 ). We acknowledge that numerous factors (e.g., physical, physiological, psychological, and/or technical aspects), in addition to injury and illness, may influence a performance outcome (Raysmith and Drew, 2016 ).…”

“…Number of medals, gold medals and country ranking were used as performance outcome (Raysmith et al, 2019 ). The number of medals and gold medals as well as the country ranking (i.e., ranking of the country at the championship according to the number of gold, silver and bronze medals) for each championship and country was collected using the IAAF ( https://www.iaaf.org/home ) and EAA ( https://www.european-athletics.org ) websites.…”

Health complaints and heat stress prevention strategies during taper as predictors of peaked athletic performance at the 2015 World Athletics Championship in hot conditions

“…Definition of peaking: Whether an athlete achieved a performance peak at the championship was determined from the athlete's pre-competition ranking and final competition rank. 9 A Competition Outcome Index (COI) (Online Fig. 2) was calculated using a Pre-rank score reflecting the athlete's relative performance during the season before the competition and a Competition-position score mirroring the athlete's final position in the competitions.…”

Design of the performance outcome scoring template (POS-T) with example application on CO2 emissions reduction amongst 36 OECD member countries

“…A performance ‘outcome’ is defined as the resultant effect of a system towards a pre-determined objective, whereas a performance ‘output’ is the data generated by a single unique metric impacting the outcome 3 , 11 – 13 . A balanced performance evaluation includes both internal measurement of the individual units in the program and of the external environment 14 , 15 . These measurements permit a reflection on achievement to date as well as what could be possible to achieve within an equal context 16 .…”