Listen to the coaches: Practitioners' perspectives on the relevance of selected cognitive skills and assessments for esports performance

Abstract

The study aims to identify the most appropriate cognitive skills and tests to assess cognitive performance in esports players. There is a lack of consensus on which skills are necessary for success in esports and which assessments are appropriate to assess these skills. This study included 51 esports coaches aged 31.82 ± 6.38 years and an average of 14.59 ± 7.10 years of esports experience. Participants were introduced to cognitive skills, domains, and assessments during a course on cognition. They thereafter got the chance to familiarize themselves with each cognitive assessment by performing them. Afterward, participants were surveyed on their perceptions of relevant cognitive skills for in-game esports performance and the most suitable cognitive test for assessing these skills in esports player performance. The sampled esports coaches identified attention, reaction time, and timing as the most relevant presented cognitive skills for in-game esports performance and rated the Change Detection Test, the Timewall Test, and the Flanker Test as the most relevant presented cognitive tests to assess cognitive skills in esports players. From the perspective of expert esports coaches, the tests that are most relevant to esports performance and most appropriate for assessing cognitive performance in esports athletes are determined. The conclusions highlight the importance of cognition in esports and guide future research on the factors influencing in-game performance. Nevertheless, additional research is necessary to determine their predictive significance for talent identification and player selection.