Motor Skills: Learning and Acquisition Processes

1. Motor Skills: Learning and Acquisition Processes Chapter 18 Sport Books Publisher

2. Outline: • Developing Movement Intelligence • Stages of Learning a Skill • Feedback for Skill Learning • Transfer of Motor Learning Sport Books Publisher

3. Developing Movement Intelligence Sport Books Publisher

4. Movement Intelligence • Following factors affect development of movement intelligence: • Starting at young age • Learning time • Instructor • Equipment • Progression Sport Books Publisher

5. Starting the Learning Process at a Young Age • As early as the preschool years • Basic skills = basis for other activities • Walking, throwing, catching • Skill should be taught correctly the first time to avoid development of bad habits Sport Books Publisher

6. Providing Sufficient Learning Time • Without physical experience, skills cannot be effectively learned and maintained • Sufficient time must be allotted for participating in PA’s that enhance movement skills Sport Books Publisher

7. Being Taught By Qualified Instructors • Instructors, physical educators, and coaches must be properly trained and have experience with teaching PA • This means having trained physical educators fill such positions, rather than math or music teachers who do not have the necessary background Sport Books Publisher

8. The Use of Quality Equipment • Safe, appropriate, and well maintained • e.g., scaled down equipment for children • Lower basketball hoops • Smaller soccer nets • Lighter baseball bats • Effectiveness of teaching movement skills is directly related to the quality of equipment Sport Books Publisher

9. Following the Right Progression • Teaching skills in an organized manner that makes skills easier to grasp and learn Sport Books Publisher

10. Stages of Learning a Skill Sport Books Publisher

11. Three general stages of motor learning have been identified Each stage consists of: Changes that occur as motor learning takes place Important features unique to each stage Sport Books Publisher

12. Cognitive or Acquisition Stage • Begins when task first introduced • Learner cognitively determines: • What the particular skill involves • Performance goals required to perform the skill • Instructions: • Are verbally transmitted (verbal stage) • Serve to convey the general concept of the skill • Self-talk and verbal reminders facilitate learning • Performance: slow, jerky, and awkward Sport Books Publisher

13. Associative or Stabilization Stage • Focused on performing and refining the skill • Concentration is directed towards smaller details (e.g., timing) • Performance: controlled and consistent • Rapid performance improvements (somewhat slower than fist stage) • Diminished self-talk Sport Books Publisher

14. Autonomous or Application Stage • Performance: automatic and very proficient • Attention demands: • Performance improvements: • Slow • Less obvious (e.g., reduced mental effort, improved style, reduced anxiety) Sport Books Publisher

15. Feedback for Skill Learning Sport Books Publisher

16. Information feedback: “the information that occurs as a result of a movement” • Some information is received during the movement and some is provided as a result of the movement • Feedback is one of the strongest factors that controls the effectiveness of learning Sport Books Publisher

17. Feedback Classification Information Feedback Intrinsic Feedback Extrinsic Feedback Knowledge of Performance Knowledge of Results Knowledge of Performance Knowledge of Results Vision Audition Touch Muscle Feeling . Basketball Golf Tennis service ace Darts . Lap times Distance jumped Height jumped Judge’s score . Instructor/Coach Parent/Friend Video replay Photographs Radar gun Stopwatch Sport Books Publisher

18. Intrinsic Feedback • Information that is provided as a natural consequence of performing an action Knowledge Knowledge of performanceof results Arm extension Watching the when hitting the tennis ball land tennis ball in the opponent’s court Sport Books Publisher

19. Extrinsic Feedback • Information that is provided to the learner by somebody else or some artificial means following a performance outcome • Provides information above and beyond what is naturally available to the learner (augmented feedback) • Can be controlled; when, how, how often… Sport Books Publisher

20. Extrinsic Feedback cont’d • Knowledge of results • Information about the degree of success Not effective when outcome is obvious Important when outcome is less obvious • Knowledge of performance • Information about the execution of a completed movement • Example: “took your eye off the ball,” “swing was a little late,” etc. Sport Books Publisher

21. Motivational Properties of Feedback • Extrinsic feedback serves to motivate the learner • Error correction • Therefore, a skilled instructor should be able to reinforce correct actions as well as point out errors Sport Books Publisher

22. Feedback Can be a Crutch • Providing feedback continuously for a long period of time can lead to dependency • Occasional feedback tends to enhance learning • Various types of feedback that minimize dependency have been identified Sport Books Publisher

23. Faded Feedback • Benefit: teacher can tailor feedback to respect individual differences High Gradually reduced (faded) Feedback Low Degree of skill High Sport Books Publisher

24. Bandwidth Feedback No feedback provided Feedback provided • Benefits: • Eventually faded feedback occurs • Lack of feedback = positive reinforcement • Movement consistency develops because learner is not encouraged to change movement on each trial Range of correctness Sport Books Publisher

25. Summary Feedback • Benefits: • Generates movement consistency • Avoids overloading the learner Feedback Feedback Feedback Sport Books Publisher

26. When in the Learning Process is Information Feedback Needed Most? Cognitive Associative Autonomous stage stage stage Feedback is vital Faded, bandwidth, or summary feedback Feedback withdrawal Sport Books Publisher

27. How Much Feedback is Necessary? • Novel tasks • Processing capacity can be easily overloaded • Intense but selective instruction • One important piece of information feedback at a time Sport Books Publisher

28. How Precise Should Feedback Be? • Descriptive (general) feedback • Indicates something you did, right or wrong • e.g., there was no follow through • Prescriptive (precise) feedback • Provides you with precise correction statements about how to improve your movements • e.g., snap your wrist more on the follow through • Precise feedback generates far better results Sport Books Publisher

29. High Precise Feedback General Encouragement Performance Low Early Late Blocks of Learning Trials Sport Books Publisher

30. What is the Best Timing for Information Feedback? • Short-term memory is very susceptible to loss • Generally, the greater the delay of information provision the less effect the given information has • Therefore, immediate feedback is more beneficial Sport Books Publisher

31. Transfer of Motor Learning Sport Books Publisher

32. Transfer of learning between two tasks generally increases as the similarity between them increases Types of Transfer: Positive vs. negative Near vs. far Sport Books Publisher

33. Positive Transfer • e.g., Practicing drills and lead-up games with strong (positive) transfer to the actual game • Learning can be positively transferred from practice to game situation when drills are similar in nature to the criterion task Sport Books Publisher

34. Negative Transfer • Not common • Activities that may negatively transfer to the criterion task need to be avoided when performance is critical • e.g., playing mini-golf before golf tournament Sport Books Publisher

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36. Near Transfer • Desired when the learning goal is a task that is relatively similar to the training task • Transfer of learning is specific and closely approximates the ultimate situation • e.g., practicing various plays before a volleyball tournament Sport Books Publisher

37. Far Transfer • Desired when interested in developing more general capabilities for a variety of skills • Occurs from one task to another very different task • Best applies when beginning to learn a skill • e.g., overhand throw  baseball throw, football throw, tennis serve, volleyball spike… Sport Books Publisher

38. Transfer Strategies • Training machines and stimulators • Whole vs. part practice • Lead-up activities and drills • Mental rehearsal Sport Books Publisher

39. Training Machines and Simulators • Closely mimic features of real-world task • Goal = positive transfer of learning from simulator to the target skill • Effectiveness depends on the ability to simulate motor as well as perceptual, conceptual, and biomotor elements Sport Books Publisher

40. Whole vs. part practice • Part practice • Practicing independent components of motor skill • Eventually, units of a task should transfer to the task as a whole • e.g., gymnastics routine • Whole practice • Practicing skill as a whole • e.g., golf swing Sport Books Publisher

41. Part Practice • Effective for tasks serial in nature and relatively long duration • Effective as long as the actions of one part do not interact strongly with the actions of the next part (i.e., independent) Sport Books Publisher

42. Whole Practice • Used with discrete tasks of short duration where components interact intensely • Practicing individual components would change the essence of the skill Sport Books Publisher

43. Progressive Part Practice • Used to avoid transfer problems due to high levels of interaction among task components • Effective for any sequential action; e.g., tennis serve Sport Books Publisher

44. Lead-up Activities and Drills • Transfer to another target sporting activity • e.g., passing, shooting, dribbling, and faking drills for soccer • Improvement of basic abilities • Quickening, balancing, perceptual exercises, etc. • e.g., perceptual motor training Sport Books Publisher

45. Mental Rehearsal • The process associated with mentally rehearsing the performance of a skill in the absence of any overt physical movement • Evidence has demonstrated that mental rehearsal generates positively transferable motor learning • Involves constructing model situations and going through the motions of what you will do later • Especially beneficial for injured athletes • It is a supplement to physical practice Sport Books Publisher

46. Designing Effective Practice • Conditions of Practice: a) Blocked Practice - a given task is practiced on many consecutive trials before setting about the next task - enables the learners to correct specific problems and refine their skills one at a time - important early in practice when correct habits should be learned b) Random Practice - ordering of tasks is randomized in a way that tasks from different classes are mixed throughout the practice period - random practice is very effective once a skill has become more developed Sport Books Publisher

47. Massed Versus Distributed Practice a)Massed Practice -a schedule in which the amount of rest between practice trials is short relative to the trial length -eg. 5 sec of rest for a practice trial lasting 60 secs. b)Distributed Practice -practice that allows for more rest between trials relative to the trial length -the rest period may last as long as the trial itself Reducing the amount of rest between trials will also reduce the amount of time the body and central nervous system have to recover from physical and mental fatigue There is no single optimal practice-rest ratio for all learning tasks Sport Books Publisher

48. Grouping for Practice • Designed to make learning suitable for everyone involved • Should be based on the learners’ skill levels, rather than a subjective determination of their underlying abilities • Other factors, such as maturity level, previous experience, and level of physical fitness need to be considered Sport Books Publisher

49. Effects of Motivation on Learning • Until the learner has been motivated, effective learning is not likely to occur • An instructor plays an important role in motivating his students (encouraging learners to set goals, providing excellent demonstrations, or using visual aids) • It’s a Fact !: She who is motivated makes more of an effort during practice, can practice for longer periods of time, and learns more in the end • The Law of Effect: Organisms tend to repeat responses that are rewarded and to avoid responses that are not rewarded or punished Sport Books Publisher