Date of Award
6-15-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Organizational Unit
Morgridge College of Education, Research Methods and Information Science, Research Methods and Statistics
First Advisor
Yixiao Dong
Second Advisor
Nick Cutforth
Third Advisor
Mei Yin
Fourth Advisor
Cecilia Orphan
Keywords
Dynamic measurement modeling (DMM), Golf science, Golf statistics, Growth modeling, Mixed effects modeling
Abstract
This study demonstrates an effective and innovative approach to measuring the latent athletic abilities and capacities of professional golfers. I used nonlinear mixed effects growth modeling (e.g., Dynamic Measurement Modeling) to measure professional golfers’ ability levels and capacities for improvement. I accomplished this using a two-stage modeling approach. First, a crossed linear mixed effects model estimated each player’s ability level in each year. In the second stage, I used the results from the first stage to estimate several candidate nonlinear growth trajectories for players’ abilities over time. The quadratic growth trajectory was the best-fitting of these trajectories and was used to estimate each player’s individual-level capacity (maximum predicted ability). Validation results indicate that the ability estimates from stage one can outperform existing unidimensional measures of golfing ability and that the capacity estimates from the second stage are reliable and provide better forecasts of players’ future abilities than do single-timepoint estimates. This study demonstrates the applicability of latent variable statistics and longitudinal growth models to the study of sports, provides a novel statistical method to estimate player abilities and capacities in professional golf, and provides a tutorial for estimating Dynamic Measurement Models (DMM) using R.
Copyright Date
6-2024
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Mac Wetherbee
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
178 pgs
File Size
1.2 MB
Recommended Citation
Wetherbee, Mac, "Capturing Latent Abilities and Latent Capacities of Professional Golfers Using Nonlinear Mixed Effects Growth Modeling" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2413.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2413
Included in
Applied Statistics Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Other Applied Mathematics Commons, Sports Studies Commons, Statistical Models Commons