title: On Being in the Wrong Place: The Role of Children's Conceptual Understanding and Ballgame Experience when Judging a Football Player's Offside Position.
abstract: We investigated the role of children's conceptual understanding and ballgame experience when judging whether a football player is in an offside position, or not. In the offside position, a player takes advantage of being behind the defence line of the opposing team and just waits for the ball to arrive in order to score a goal. We explained the offside rule to 7- and 9-year-old children with a Subbuteo setup. They produced drawings of an offside position until it was correct (drawing to criterion). Thereafter, children judged whether a designated player was in an offside position in a computerized task. Like adults, also children found it easier to judge when a player was in a wrong rather than a right place. Only when including frequency of ballgame practice in the analysis it was revealed that boys were better independently of age as they judged the offside position more systematically.
authors.affiliation: London Metropolitan University , UK.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lange-Küttner
authors.affiliation: University of Turin , Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bosco
keywords: Wrong place; ball game playing experience; game rules; offside position; spatial concepts