BASIC MOTOR LEARNING

Different Level of Motor Skill Acquisition

Instead of developing a faculty for skipping because they play hop scotch in the school yard, or learning to chase and track a ball playing stickball, children are exposed to motion and skills only in classes where they are told what to do, rather than learning on their own. Again, as said above, language can only approximate the skill; it is not the skill itself and if the child is not given sufficient time to translate the language and learn the skill, it may not develop fully at a young or appropriate age. And due to embarrassment, some kids will never pick up a later in life if they did not gain proficiency at the appropriate age. As we learn different movements, we progress through different stages or movement patterns, each with its own emphasis and performance cues.

“Movements patterns is the term given to ten basic types of movements (sending, receiving, accompanying, evading, locomotions, landings, static, swings, rotations, springs) the body engages in when participating in physical activity. These movement patterns are broken down into ‘performance cues’ at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

Understanding the different levels will make a coach more aware of his players’ development and better assist the coach with practice planning according to the players’ needs. Too often, especially in youth sports, the emphasis is misguided, as coach’s play to win rather than focusing on skill development and insuring proper motor skill development. Many times, coaches introduce a skill which to them is fairly simple, like shooting a lay-up, and combine one skill with another. So, instead of learning to shoot a lay-up, the athlete ,must dribble a ball while running, pick up the ball and shoot. The coach combines manipulative and locomotor skills, oftentimes before the athlete is ready for such a challenge. This leads to frustration by the coach, as he cannot understand why the players cannot do it, and frustration by the players at their inability to perform.

Instead, if the coach understands the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, he may chose to teach dribbling and shooting a lay-up separately, so the player master a lay-up with no dribble first, than with one dribbling from close to the basket and finally a full speed lay-up while dribbling the ball. This approach separates the different skills and allows the player to work on them one at a time, hopefully moving the player along from the beginner level to the intermediate level in each skill quicker than if one tried to learn every thing at one time.

Like the three levels of performance cues, there are three learning stages one goes through when acquiring a skill and they are closely related to the beginner., intermediate and advanced levels. There are three stages an individual progresses through when learning psycho-motor skills; they are the cognitive, the associative and the autonomic. The cognitive stage roughly parallels the beginner level; the associative parallels the intermediate and the autonomic parallels the advanced. Each is marked by different characteristics and different appropriate teaching techniques.

Cognitive Level

The cognitive stage is marked by numerous errors, variability in performance and a great deal of needed quality repetition. In this stage, the athlete struggles to make sense of the language instruction and translate it into action. Thus, this stage is marked by awkward, slow movements that the learner is consciously trying to control. The athlete thinks before doing, rather than reacting naturally as an advanced, autonomous athlete does.

In this stage, it is easy to overwhelm the athlete with too much information, or by doing too many new things at one time. Therefore, only one new skill should be practice at a time. When learning to hit a baseball, it is easier to use a tee, as it limits the motor abilities needed. If a new baseball player is pushed into a batter’s box against a live pitcher, he not only must learn the form or the swing and to keep his eye on the ball, but he must track the ball from the pitcher’s hand and decide whether the pitch is a strike. For a new batter, especially a young athlete, this is sensory overload, and the athlete is almost sure to fail and become frustrated. However on a tee, the athlete is in control of his learning as he can place the ball where he wants it and swing when he is ready. He is not learning to hit a thrown ball, but he is learning to swing the bat, which is the first part of hitting a thrown ball. When his comfort level increases and he understands how to swing the bat, than he can move to the next level and concentrate on putting more power into the swing to hit the ball further, and work toward facing a live pitcher.

Is is critical that player is not rushed through the stages and he is given time to learn properly. Each athlete learns at a different rate and some will acquire the skill earlier than others. One of the greatest challenges facing coaches is designing drills, instruction and practices for players of varying ability and in different learning stages. The athlete also must understand his learning process in other to prevent himself from judging his actions. When a young player is learning a new skill. He is cognizant of his peers and their development. If his peers learn quicker, he judges himself poorly and negative thoughts further hinder his development and growth through the learning process. Than athlete learning to hit on a tee must not see missing the target as failure, but instead recognize what he did wrong (and this is where coaching enters into play, as while still in the cognitive stage, the athlete will need considerable help figuring out what he did incorrectly that resulted in the error) and learn from the attempt. If he focuses on the negative result, he is likely to make the same mistake, as he fails to learn from the prior attempt and is not aware of his error.   

Associative Level

The second stage, the Associative Stage, he marked by more fluidity and understanding. As the athlete enters this stage, many of the basic fundamentals and mechanics of the skill have been learned. The mistakes are fewer, less serious and more importantly, the athlete is capable of recognizing many of his errors and is aware of how to take the proper steps to correct them. The goal now is to refine the skill. The coach’s role shifts to assist the player’s needs; now, as opposed to constant critiques to ensure proper mechanics; the coach is less vocal, but more specific with his instructions. It is paramount that the coach continues to provide the athlete with useful, specific information and constructive feedback throughout this. When working with players in this stage on their shooting, my feedback is minimal as I allow the player concentrating on the shot and the feel of the shot in order to self-correct, and not to focus on understanding my corrections. After several shots, I’ll stop the player and narrow the focus in certain areas to aid the player and offer my opinion on what may help them improve. At this point, it is refining a basic shot; I do not try to alter the natural motion, but tweak it to make it more effective. However, if the player is more comfortable, confident or consistent in his mechanics and he is successful, I let him go. The tweaking at this point is primarily focusing the player on feeling his shot and insuring his motion is the same every time. Other fundamental feedback is typically centered on the leg drive powering the ball to the basket and hand placement on the ball. At this point, it is the little things that will create improvement, assuming the player exited the Cognitive Stage with acceptable mechanics. It is critical that the player is not rushed through the stages and he is given time to learn properly. Each athlete learns at a different rate and some will acquire the skill earlier than others. One of the greatest challenges facing coaches is designing drills, instruction and practices for players of varying ability and in different learning stages.

Autonomic Level

The Autonomic Stage is the final stage, though with some skills, complete mastery will take years, if it is ever reached. The autonomous stage is reached when learning is almost complete, although an individual can continue to refine the skill through practice. The stage is called autonomous because the learner no longer needs to depend on the instructor for feedback about performance. The athlete understands his errors almost immediately and can take action to correct his own mistakes. The final stage of learning is realized only after much practice, quality repetition and experience with the specific task. The skill is habitual or automatic… The athlete is able to recognize his errors and is cognizant of the process needed to correct them.

In this stage, the coach asks more questions as opposed to answering questions. Rather than tell the athlete what he did wrong, or trying to fill the athlete with information, the coach tries to guide the athlete’s learning and pull the answers from within, through the athlete’s heightened awareness. “The only way to truly know if the athlete has accrued this higher level of learning.

Developing correct fundamentals is essential because “practice makes permanent”. The more a player practices, the more he ingrains his habits and the more natural these feel. If the player learns an incorrect habit of flawed mechanics, it gets tougher to change the bad habit as the player progresses and ages. Therefore, learning proper fundamentals the first time is vastly underrated in importance for youth coaches who must deal with hundreds of things, but often comprise proper skill acquisition. The need to win and succeed often dictate practices, and the best way to win at youth levels is not necessarily the best way to develop skills properly.

As a result bad habits arise and continue to worsen until they are corrected. Simply playing more does not solve the problem.

‘Moreover, bad habits acquired early in life are likely to persist throughout an entire lifetime. For example, the young pitcher who hasn’t yet acquired at mature level of throwing isn’t likely to lose his bad habits simply because he’s required to pitch one to two games a week. Rather, the odds are these bad habits will simply become more and more ingrained as time goes on”.

Correcting a mistake or changing a bad habit requires a different learning process than learning a new action. If drawing a picture, one would approach the drawing differently if it was a blank canvas, as opposed to drawing over an unfinished work. When drawing over another work, the first step would be to erase the previous work as thoroughly as possible, trying to create a blank canvas from which to move forward.

In sport skill development, a similar process is necessary. If an athlete has formed a bad habit, he will be unable to change the habit without the ability to recognize the old habit. He is not a blank canvas, but one with markings, and he has to see the markings in order to erase and replace them. “ The essence of physical learning is developing distinctions, becoming aware of the differences between two actions and recognizing the consequences of each”. Changing a bad habit requires the athlete to be able to differentiate between the bad habit and the desired action; the body should naturally choose the more efficient means, once it understands the difference.

Because each represents a different learning process, the coach must be aware of his mission. “The first step is to do an error analysis. If we find the player’s skills and techniques show no consistent pattern and that the errors are fairly random. However, if we find that the error does show a pattern or consistency, i.e. it is a ‘learned, ingrained, resistant error,’ then we know we are dealing with an ‘unlearning’ task and not a ‘re-teaching’ task” (Baxter).

When unlearning, the athlete must gain an awareness of his previous habit before he can unlearn the habit and move forward. In this manner, the second “river of feel” is important to the technical process. “When people become more aware of key areas pf their swing. Their shots become more consistent….increased awareness allows the body’s natural instincts to come into play and these instincts make the swing more powerful and efficient”.

Dr. Paul Baxter, an Australian sports psychologist, has developed a method for unlearning incorrect from mechanics and teaching the proper way. His method is called the Old Way/New Way Method, and its basic steps are detailed below:

The Old Way /New Way Method

• Point out the error.
• Explain why it is wrong.
• Ask player’s awareness of what he or she normally does that is wrong. This step is crucial for the rest of the procedure to work.
• Show the player the correct position for holding the ball.
• Show and explain the differences between their way and the correct way.
• Systematically and repeatedly rehearse these differences, having the player do it their way first, then do it the correct, comparing these two and then describing the difference.
• When the player seems to have the two ways sorted out in his mind, then and only then proceed with systematic practice of the correct way.
• Instruct the player in the correct procedure for follow-up and self-correction for this specific skill problem. (Baxter)

Variables that influenced the level of motor skill acquirement

• Practice

1. Practice method
2. Practice distribution

• Feedback

1. Intrinsic feedback
2. Extrinsic feedback