How Insporta applies the research

The research on sport cognition confirms the core of how Insporta is built, points to specific extensions, and sets limits on what any knowledge test should promise. Sport-specific items, topic tags on every question, response time recorded as one dimension rather than the score, and the split between recall and applied questions all follow from the evidence reviewed in this section. The same evidence suggests anticipation-style items, age cohorts and longitudinal analysis as the next steps, and it says plainly that a knowledge test is one moderate predictor among several.

What the evidence confirms

Sport-specific items

Every Insporta question is about one sport: its rules, tactics, opponent patterns and history. Nothing is abstract. This is the direct consequence of Kalén et al. (2021), whose meta-analysis found that sport-specific cognitive skills discriminate between athlete levels far better than generic functions, and of Reinhard, Mann and Höner (2025), where a sport-specific test explained 34% of variance in playing level against 13% for a generic composite. The reasoning is set out in sport-specific knowledge, not generic brain training.

A topic tag on every question

Each question is labelled with the specific topic it tests, unique within the sport. Kalén’s finding is not only that sport-specific measures work but that decomposing the domain into its components is where the discrimination comes from. A profile of which topics a player answers well and which they do not is more informative than a total score, and it is what makes a result actionable: a gap in the offside law or in pressing triggers is something a coach can address in a session.

Response time as one dimension, not the score

Insporta records how long a player takes to answer, and treats that as one of several dimensions alongside accuracy. It does not rank players by speed. Heisler et al. (2023) found that among 128 young players only the quality of the final decision separated age groups, not the speed of the first option, and Janssen, Müller and Mann (2023) describe skilled players deliberately delaying to open a window of opportunity. Time without accuracy measures the wrong thing. The methodology also keeps question stems and options within fixed length corridors, so that the time recorded reflects thinking rather than reading.

Recall and applied questions

Questions are classed as recall (a fact, a rule, a date) or applied (a situation that requires using the knowledge). The applied class reaches toward the decision-making construct that carries the strongest evidence, while staying honest that a written question is not a video decision task. See three levels of cognition.

A named construct

Insporta describes what it measures as sport-specific knowledge, not intelligence or football IQ. Furley, Schütz and Wood (2023) show why the naming matters; the reasoning is in what a knowledge test does not measure.

What the evidence suggests next

Anticipation items

Janssen, Müller and Mann (2023) describe decision-making as cyclical and built from anticipatory judgments. A question that shows a situation and asks what happens next measures something different from recall of a rule or a tactic. Items of this type, particularly with a video paused at a decision point, would extend the test toward the representative decision-making paradigm without changing what the existing questions measure.

More representative response formats

Travassos et al. (2013) found that expertise effects grow as the required response becomes more like the real action. Selecting one of four options is the most generic response there is. Ranking options in order is a step toward specificity; choosing a zone on a pitch or a player in a frame is a further step. Each is worth considering, and each is more work to build and to score fairly.

Age cohorts

Heisler et al. (2023) place a developmental threshold near age 11, before which decision-making develops non-linearly. For young players, content organised by age cohort, roughly under 10, around 11, and 12 and older, is more meaningful than a difficulty scale alone. Any comparison between players should also control for age, as Vestberg et al. (2017) caution.

Longitudinal analysis

Williams, Ford and Drust (2020) name the shortage of longitudinal studies as the field’s largest gap. A platform on which the same player takes tests over months accumulates that kind of data as a matter of course. Turning it into evidence means following the validation standard: a criterion declared in advance, several dimensions analysed together, the full range of players kept, accuracy reported with its base rate, and reliability measured against the r = .78 benchmark of Höner et al. (2023) before any figure is quoted.

Data on women’s sport

Reinhard, Mann and Höner (2025) list the absence of female participants as a limitation. Insporta’s tests are the same for everyone, and keeping results segmented by sex allows findings for women’s sport to be reported rather than assumed.

What clubs, coaches and players can and cannot expect

Can expect. A sport-specific measure of what a player knows, decomposed by topic, with the strengths and gaps visible. A dimension of the game, the cognitive one, that the literature says is worth measuring: Murr et al. (2018) report d = 0.81 for decision-making in prospective studies, the only perceptual-cognitive factor in the top three predictors. Something that can be taught, since knowledge, unlike executive function, is acquired.

Cannot expect. A single number that identifies future professionals. Even the best sport-specific test in Reinhard et al. explained about a third of the variance in playing level; Ivarsson et al. (2020) describe psychological predictors as small but significant; and Höner et al. (2021) showed on 13,869 players that no single indicator beats a combination, and that coach judgment adds information no test captures. Base rates are low, with 9% of a national talent pool reaching academy level in three seasons, so any predictor will flag many players who do not progress.

Should expect from Insporta. Honesty about which of these numbers are Insporta’s own. The figures above belong to the studies that produced them. Insporta’s tests share their principles and will be held to their standard; their reliability and validity are established on Insporta’s data or not claimed at all.

The full list of the studies behind this article is in what the research says and the references.