Motor Skills: Learning and Acquisition Processes

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Motor Skills Learning and Acquisition Processes

• Chapter 18

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Outline

• Developing Movement Intelligence
• Stages of Learning a Skill
• Feedback for Skill Learning
• Transfer of Motor Learning

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Developing Movement Intelligence
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Movement Intelligence

• Following factors affect development of movement
  intelligence
• Starting at young age
• Learning time
• Instructor
• Equipment
• Progression

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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

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Providing Sufficient Learning Time

• Without physical experience, skills cannot be
  effectively learned and maintained
• Sufficient time must be allotted for
  participating in PAs that enhance movement skills

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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

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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

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Following the Right Progression

• Teaching skills in an organized manner that makes
  skills easier to grasp and learn

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Stages of Learning a Skill
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• 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

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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

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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

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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)

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Feedback for Skill Learning
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• 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

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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 Judges score
.
Instructor/Coach Parent/Friend
Video replay Photographs Radar gun Stopwatch
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Intrinsic Feedback

• Information that is provided as a natural
  consequence of performing an action
• Knowledge Knowledge
• of performance of results
• Arm extension Watching the
• when hitting the tennis ball land
• tennis ball in the opponents
• court

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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

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Extrinsic Feedback contd

• 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.

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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

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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

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Faded Feedback

• Benefit teacher can tailor feedback to respect
  individual differences

High Gradually reduced (faded) Feedback
Low Degree of skill High
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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
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Summary Feedback

• Benefits
• Generates movement consistency
• Avoids overloading the learner

Feedback
Feedback
Feedback
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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
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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

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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

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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

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Transfer of Motor Learning
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• Transfer of learning between two tasks generally
  increases as the similarity between them
  increases
• Types of Transfer
• Positive vs. negative
• Near vs. far

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Transfer Strategies

• Training machines and stimulators
• Whole vs. part practice
• Lead-up activities and drills
• Mental rehearsal

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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

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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

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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)

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Whole Practice

• Used with discrete tasks of short duration where
  components interact intensely
• Practicing individual components would change the
  essence of the skill

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)
• Its 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