Motor Performance and Learning: Understanding Skill Development and Application

1. Getting Started Chapter 1

2. Objectives • Understand the definition of skill • Explain the relationship between motor performance and motor learning • Discuss the situation-based approach to motor performance and learning • Understand the organization and design of this book

3. Preview Focus on how people learn skills and perform them, how they develop skills, and how skills are used in various situations

4. Overview • Knowing the mechanisms that underlie motor learning and performance is essential for understanding them. • Some skills are fundamental from birth and require minimal maturation and practice (walking, running, chewing, balancing), whereas others are achieved only through extensive practice and maturity.

5. History of Motor Learning • Relatively new discipline of study • Typically, emphasis is placed on motor learning in a physical education-related degree. • Franklin M. Henry: father of motor skill research (before 1950) • Focused on individual differences in motor performance

6. Definition of Terms • Ecological viewpoint—the study of movement in natural environments • Ergonomics—the study of human beings in work environments • Motor behavior—the study of humans’ skilled movements generated at a behavioral level of analysis • Motor control—the study of neural, physical, and behavioral aspects of movement • Motor learning—the study of acquiring skilled movement as a result of practice

7. What Is a Motor Skill? A skill for which the primary determinant of success is the quality of the movement that the performer produces

8. Discrete Skill • Has a defined beginning and end • Usually starts and ends quickly • Examples

9. Serial Skill • Several discrete skills are connected in a sequence to perform critical movement patterns • Requires a longer time than a discrete skill • Progresses from an individual focus to a combined focus • Eventually becomes one single, smooth, rapid movement • Examples

10. Continuous Skill • Unfolds without a recognizable beginning and ends in an ongoing fashion • Is repetitive • Continues for many minutes • Has strong performance proficiency factor • Duration determined by marker or barrier • Examples

11. Motor Elements • A skill that is primarily motor emphasizes the quality of movement that makes the skill successful. • Emphasis is placed on correct performance. • Decision making is minimized and motor performance is maximized.

12. Cognitive Elements • In a skill that is primarily cognitive, the movement is less important than the actual decision guiding the movement. • Emphasis is placed on what to do. • Decision making is maximized and motor control is minimized.

13. Motor and Cognitive Elements • Most skills are a combination of motor and cognitive elements. • Usually, new skills require a great deal more cognition (thinking) than skills performed by an elite performer.

14. Skills and Environmental Predictability • Open skill—performed in an environment that is variable and unpredictable; performer must use perception and decision making to adjust movement, changing environment • Closed skill—performed in an environment that is stable and predictable (continued)

15. Skills and Environmental Predictability (continued) • Most skills are performed between low (i.e., open) and high (i.e., closed) environmental predictability. • The capabilities (characteristics of people who are subject to change as a result of practice) should be considered when attempting to determine the demands of the task.

16. Performance Proficiency Perspective: Skilled vs. Unskilled • Maximum certainty—able to meet performance goals or results with certainty, high degree of certainty on demand • Minimum energy expenditure—reduction of unwanted or unnecessary energy • Minimum movement time—able to perform in the shortest amount of time possible

17. Motor Learning vs. Motor Performance • Motor performance - Always observable - Influenced by motivation - Influenced by attentional focus - Influenced by fatigue, physical conditions - Fluctuates (continued)

18. Motor Learning vs. Motor Performance (continued) • Motor learning • Internal process that determines capability • Improves with practice • Often based on observing person’s stability of motor performance • Stable over several observations under varied circumstances

19. Theory Stages of Performance and Learning: Early Learning • Gentile—getting the idea of the movement • Newell—understanding basic patterns, coordination • Fitts and Posner—cognitive, associative stage • Adams—verbal stage (talk)

20. Stages of Performance and Learning: Later Stage • Gentile—fixed or diversification (open vs. closed) • Fitts and Posner—autonomous • Adams—motor stage (movement) • Newell—controlled (modify the pattern as needed)

21. Explicit vs. Implicit • Explicit learning—improvements occur by recognizing the obvious to change or modify performance • Implicit learning—improvements occur with no awareness or explanation as a result of repeated performance; able to attend to other stimuli

22. Problem-Based Approach to Motor Performance • Assumption that the key to learning is the ability to ask the right questions • Who? What? Where? • Who—the person you are teaching and his or her abilities, experience, and motivation • What—the task to be performed, decision-making ability, goal of task • Where—location where performance will take place, target context, similar practice as performance

23. Different Movement Practitioners, Same Questions… • Coaches—produce skilled performance, advantage in competition • Human factors—produce more, operate machines better • Therapists (OT, PT)—assist in learning or relearning movements

24. Understanding Learning and Performance • Individual differences—differences in performance due to inherited abilities that are stable and enduring • Model—an analogy of a system that captures many of the known properties to facilitate understanding of systems and promote practical applications