1. Stages of Learning Chapter 5

2. COGNITIVE STAGE ASSOCIATIVE STAGE AUTONOMOUS STAGE Development of basic movement pattern Refinement of movement pattern Performance of movement virtually automatic Fitts and Posner’s Three Stage Model Practice

3. Cognitive Stage • High degree of cognitive activity • Attentional demands high, limited to movement production • Movements lack synchronization and appear choppy and deliberate • Numerous errors, typically gross in nature • Lacks capability to determine cause of errors or correct them

4. Associative Stage • More consistent • Attentional demands for movement production decrease • Fewer, less gross errors • Better at detecting cause of errors • Begin to develop appropriate error correction strategies

5. Autonomous Stage • Highest level of proficiency • Not all learners will reach this stage • Attention reallocated to strategic decision-making • Consistent • Confident • Make few errors and can generally detect and correct those errors that do occur

6. Practical Application • Choose a skill and generate a list of practical tips practitioners could follow based on Fitts and Posner’s characteristics of learners across the three stages. • See Cerebral Challenge #1 on page 100

7. GETTING THE IDEA OF THE MOVEMENT FIXATION Refinement of movement pattern Development of ability to discriminate between regulatory and non-regulatory conditions Closed Skill DIVERSIFICATION Development of basic movement pattern Adaptation of movement to conform to ever-changing environmental demands Open Skill Gentile’s Two-Stage Model

8. Getting the Idea of the Movement • Goal is to develop an understanding of movement’s requirements • Have to learn to discriminate between regulatory and non-regulatory conditions

9. Fixation/Diversification • Goal is refinement • Fixation – Closed skills • How should skills be practiced? • Diversification – Open skills • How should skills be practiced?

10. Practical Application • Choose a skill and generate a list of practical tips practitioners could follow based on Gentile’s two stages of learning. • See Cerebral Challenge #3 on page 103

11. Review Questions • How does the role of the practitioner shift as the learner progresses through Fitts & Posner’s stages of learning? Through Gentile’s two stage model? • Explain the relationship of fixation/ diversification to closed and open skills.

12. Inferring Progress: Learner And Performance Changes • Coordination and control; freezing degrees of freedom • Muscle activity; reduction to only those needed • Energy expenditure; reduction as movement becomes more efficient and coordinated • Consistency;consistently correct motion or incorrect? • Attention; less conscious attention; attention may be detrimental; visual attention on relevant stimuli • Knowledge and memory; access information quicker, solve problems more quickly with fewer errors

13. Inferring Progress: Learner And Performance Changes continued • Error detection and correction; better able to interpret sensory receptor info in recognition schema; may stop a performance to avoid an inefficient movement • Self-confidence; more success breed more motivation to continue; shoot for 80% success

14. Review Questions • Describe how a person’s capability of detecting and correcting error changes as a result of practice and moving from early to later stages of learning. Provide an example to illustrate this change. • Describe how novices try to control the degrees of freedom of various limbs as they begin to learn a new skill. Give an example. • Discuss how the muscles used change as a result of practice, and explain why this happens.

15. Assessing learning from coordination dynamics • One observes stability and transitions of: • Temporal movement coordination patterns • Spatial movement coordination patterns • The stability or instability of performance across trials helps the observer characterize learning

16. Performance Curves • Used to assess progress over time

17. Two performance characteristics can be observed with performance curves • Improvement • Consistency

18. Types of Performance Curves

19. Practice performance may misrepresent learning • Practice performance may overestimate or underestimate learning • Practice artificially inflates performance • Transfer and retention test should be given • Performance plateaus • Period when little or no improvement occurs

20. Performance Plateau • Period of time during the learning process in which no overt changes in performance occur • May be transitional period in learning process • Not always indicative of cessation of learning • Other factors: fatigue, anxiety, lack of motivation • Limited by performance measurement used

21. Retention and Transfer Tests • Both measure persistence of improved skill performance • Retention test • Skill performance test give following a period of no practice • Transfer test • Measurement of the adaptability of a response determined by testing learner’s ability to use a skill in a novel context or manner

22. Assessing learning by retention tests • A common measure to assess the performance characteristic of improvement • Typical administration of a retention test • Perform the skill in practice • Period of no practice • Retention test is administered to determine amount retained

23. Assessing learning by transfer tests • Assess the performance characteristics of adaptability • Performing a practiced skill in: • Novel context that changes • Without augmented feedback • Physical environment • Personal characteristics • Novel skill variations

24. Review Questions • Why aren’t performance plateaus indicative that a person has quit learning? • What characteristics may be represented on a learning curve? • Compare and contrast retention and transfer tests.