Academic Year 2023-24
Grade: DP 1
Unit 5 – Skill in sports
5.3 Principles of skill learning
Distinguish between learning and performance
Learning is a relatively permanent change in performance brought about by experience, excluding changes
due to maturation and degeneration.
Performance is a temporary occurrence, fluctuating over time.
A change in performance over time is often used to infer learning.
Phases (stages) of learning
The cognitive stage of learning is the first stage in learning a new sport. Within the cognitive stage of
learning, athletes are often young or new to the sport. A coach teaches primarily through demonstrating and
visual learning, effecting the concept of Bandura's Social Learning Theory. By watching skills, the athletes
in the cognitive stage of learning then practice. They learn by trial and error at this stage and are expected to
make many errors. In order to combat these and teach the performers, there is a large emphasis on feedback
from the coach. The feedback must be extrinsic as the performers do not have the knowledge or muscle
memory to know if the skill is done correctly. In this stage, the feedback is primarily knowledge of results.
After the performer succeeds more frequently, they will move into the associative stage of learning.
Discuss factors that contribute to the different rates of learning
Physical maturation
physical fitness
individual differences of:
coaching
age
difficulty of task
teaching environment
motivation
One diver might learn much quicker than the other
due to a higher level of fitness, for instance, one
might have greater leg power, which aids the
anaerobic acceleration off the diving board and
allows the dive to be more explosive. Similarly, one
of the divers might have higher flexibility, which
increases the level of difficulty of skills and
execution that the diver is able to perform at.
Motivation, is also vital in the rate of learning, one
diver may not be as interested or ready to learn new
skills, which will hinder their rate of learning and
improvement. Also, physical maturation, which is
linked to motivation, is the ability to know when
you are reader to learn new skills. This comes with
age and practice, two other things that could
increase the rate of learning for one diver.
Typically,as you get older, the more muscular you
are as well as more attentive you are, allowing the
Discuss factors that may contribute to the different performer to use selective attention to focus on the
rates of learning between two divers. instructions in an effort to improve. Another factor
that affect learning rates may be the type of
coaching and environment in which they learn. One
diver may be being taught by an Olympic diver, in
an isolated pool, whereas the other may be taught
by a school coach in a team where the ratio of coach
to student is much more unbalanced.
Define the concept of transfer
Transfer in skill acquisition is the influence of learning and/or performance of one skill on the learning
and/or performance of another. If this influences a skill yet to be learned or performed it is called proactive
transfer, if it influences the performance of a previous learnt skill it is called retroactive.
Outline the types of transfer
Skill to skill (one skill to the next)
Practice to performance (training to in game situation)
Abilities to skills (how natural abilities inform acquisition of skill)
Bilateral (from one limb to the other, left-to-right and right-to-left)
Stage to stage (from cognitive to associative, associative to autonomous)
Principles to skills (from theories to actual performance)
Using examples from sport, outline two types of When a coach plans a practice session for a team,
transfer a coach needs to take into account when they much be aware of types of transfer. A coach
planning a practice. would need to enforce positive transfer in order to
optimize performance in a sport such as touch
rugby, where the ball moves both left and right, a
coach must ensure the team is competent in both
directions. Naturally it is easier to pass the ball to
your left, so when practicing skills in training, the
coach must promote the opposite direction of
passing. If the players already know the correct
technique of passing, bilateral transfer will work in
a positive manner and the acquisition of skill will be
easier learned by touch players than by non-players.
A coach must also plan a practice with an end
product in mind, hopefully a tournament or a game.
To ensure a positive transfer of what the athletes
learn in training to an in-game situation the coach
should plan "game real" situations, where games are
performed with defence. This type of transfer is
called practice to performance, and is a necessity
for any team wishing to perform well under
pressure.
Outline the different types of practice
Explain the different types of presentation
Outline the spectrum of teaching styles
Command Style & Practice style
highly determined by
coaches
little room for individual
influence
Reciprocal Styles
Pupils are able to make
some decisions
still primarily determined
by the coaches
Self-check & Guided Discovery
Style
equal sharing of
responsibility between
pupils and coaches
negotiation
Problem Solving & Discovery
Style
very little influence from
coaches
students learn through
doing and trial and error
A tennis serve is both discrete and closed. Discrete
refers to a skill that has a clear end to it, once the
ball is struck and you have followed through, the
movement of serving is complete. A closed skill
Give an example of a sport skill that is both
refers to something that occurs in a predictable
discrete and closed.
environment and is not affected by it. As it i the
beginning move in tennis, the server does not rely
on anything the other player has done, it is all done
at their time with their skill.
Open skills are significantly affected by
environmental and human factors, to an extent that
the conditions dictate the pace of the movement or
How are open skills different from closed skills? skill taking place. Closed skills are performed in a
more stable environment and the movement is
predictable as nothing apart from the single
performer affects the execution.
Place a forehand tennis drive in a open play on Discrete/Serial/Continuous - Serial - a forehand
drive in tennis requires a run to the ball followed by
the linked movement of the actual forehanded hit to
the opponent.
Open/Closed - A forehanded return in tennis is an
open skill as it is determined on the placement and
speed that it was hit by the opponent.
Gross/Fine - A forehanded hit in tennis is a gross
movement as it requires the whole body but is also a
fine movement as it involved hand-eye coordination
each of the seven continua and justify your which requires detail and precision.
placing.
Internally Paced/Externally Paced - The shot is an
externally pace movement as it is dependent on the
pace and skill or placement that the opponent has
placed the ball. As it is in the middle of a game it is
impossible to dictate its speed and slow or quicken
it.
Individual/Coactive/Interactive - A forehanded shot
in tennis is an interactive skill as you are playing
with another opponent who are directly involved in
the play.
It allows for them to be easily be identified.
Grouping them together in classifications can help
athletes and others understand what their strengths
Why is it useful to be able to classify skills? and weaknesses are regarding skills. Skill can mean
so many different things, and with these
classifications it gives parameters and specificity to
their descriptions.
REFERENCES:
Sproule, J. (2015). Sports, exercise and health science course companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Topic 5: Skill in Sport. (n.d.). Retrieved January 7, 2020, from https://ibstudy.weebly.com/topic-5-skill-in-sport.html.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyJzoXqfVx4
