Chapter 2

Motor Skill Learning For Effective

Coaching and Performance
Cheryl Coker

“Most people get excited about games, but I've

got to be excited about practice, because that's
my classroom.”
Pat Summitt, Basketball Coach
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Definitions
Motor Learning:
A set of internal processes, associated with practice
or experience, leading to relatively permanent
changes in the capability for skilled movement
behavior.

Capability:
Once a skill is learned, the athlete shows a high
likelihood of exhibiting the same skill performance in
a consistent manner (although errors will still
sometimes occur).
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How do we monitor motor learning?

• Through performance, an
observable behavior, and draw
useful inferences about learning
• Changes in performance are
relatively permanent, the
athlete should be able to
demonstrate the skill repeatedly

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Phases of Motor Skill Learning
• Phases are continuous with no clear transition
between them
– Think of it like a continuum
• Athletes can be in different phases for different skills
• First proposed in Fitts & Posner’s model (1967)
– The Cognitive Phase
– The Associative Phase
– The Autonomous Phase

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The Cognitive Phase
• Focuses on getting an understanding of how to
perform the skill
– Develop a motor program: an abstract, internal
representation of the skill – like a computer program with
instructions to guide movement
• Unable to attend to external events like teammates
or movements of defensive players
• LOTS of inconsistency and error
• Dominant sensory system is vision

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 The Cognitive Phase (cont.)
• Role of the Coach:
– Clearly communicate critical aspects of the
skill through verbal instructions, visual
demonstrations, and feedback

• Duration of the Cognitive Phase:

– A few minutes or longer – depends on the
athletes age and the complexity of the skill

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The Associative Phase
• Refining the skill:
• Goal is to perform the skill both accurately and consistently
• Movement becomes more automated and
proprioceptive – athlete relies on visual control less
and less
• Athlete uses sensory feedback to evaluate movement
correctness, also develops the capability to generate
strategies for skill correction

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The Associative Phase (cont.)
Role of the Coach:
• Design effective practices to optimize skill refinement
so athlete can quickly adapt to performance setting
demands
• Provide a variety of practice experiences and more
feedback

Duration of the Associative Phase:

• Longer than the cognitive phase, ranges from a few
hours to several years
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 Closed vs. Open Skills
Closed skills:
• Performed in
a stable environment.
• tennis serve Open skills:
• free throw shooting
• Performed in a dynamic,
• putting in golf
changing environment.
• football punt return
• basketball fast break
• volleyball set or hit

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The Autonomous Phase
• Skill performance is at a maximal
level of proficiency
• Requires little conscious thought
or attention to movement – it’s
established in memory
• Excellent understanding of the
skill

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The Autonomous Phase (cont.)
• Role of the Coach:
1. Help the athletes maintain their level of skill
2. Motivate the athletes to continue improving

• Error correction and learning process:

Major changes in technique should be handled during the
off-season because it can take awhile to again reach the
autonomous phase.

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Practice Considerations
• Deliberate practice:
• Combines tasks of appropriate difficulty, information
feedback, and sufficient opportunities for repetition and
correction of errors
• Not enough on its own…

• Athlete must be motivated to learn

• Practice ≠ perfect
• Must practice with the intent to improve

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Practice Methods: Whole vs. Part
• Whole Method:
• Athletes practice activity or skill in its entirety, as a
single unit

• Part Method:
• The athlete practices each component of the
activity or skill separately and then combines the
parts into a whole skill

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Practice Methods: Whole vs. Part (cont.)
• Progressive-part method:
• The first two parts of a skill are practiced separately and
then combined and practiced as a unit . The third part is
practiced separately next and then combined with the
first two, and so on until the skill is performed in its
entirety.

• Repetitive-Part method:
• First part of the skill is practiced independently. Once a
level of proficiency is obtained, the second is
immediately added to it and the two parts are practiced
together. The pattern continues until all parts have been
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Practice Methods: Whole vs. Part (cont.)
• Which method you use depends on the nature of the
skill and the nature of the learner.

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Practice Methods: Blocked vs. Random
• Blocked Practice
• All trials of a given task are completed before moving on to
the next task

• Random Practice
• Trials for a given task are mixed with other tasks in a
random order

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Practice Methods: Blocked vs. Random
(cont.)

EXAMPLE:
Swimmers need to learn the
four strokes in 2 weeks, or 8
practices.

BLOCKED RANDOM
Practice each stroke for 2 Practice all 4 strokes within
sessions. Swimmers can each practice period but to
concentrate on one stroke at do so in a random order so
a time without worrying that the swimmers never
about interference from the practice the same stroke on
other strokes. two consecutive trials.
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Practice Methods: Blocked vs. Random (cont.)
• Blocked practice better acquisition, but poorer
long-term learning
• Measured by transfer:
• The application of practiced skill in a new situation

• Contextual interference effect:

• Making practice environment more difficult (AKA random
practice) leads to better learning, though performance is
depressed

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Practice Methods: Blocked vs. Random (cont.)
• During the initial stage of skill acquisition, blocked
practice conditions may be more beneficial
• However, once the basics are acquired, contextual
interference must be increased
• Solution = Repeated blocked practice:
• Combines the advantages of blocked and random

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Practice Methods: Constant vs. Variable
Practice
• Constant Conditions:
• Maintaining constant environmental
conditions so the player may put all of
their focus on the task at hand

• Variable Conditions:
• Changing environmental variables in order
to force the athletes to adapt to new
demands
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Practice Methods: Constant vs. Variable
Practice (cont.)
EXAMPLE: Practice fielding a
ground ball and throwing to
first base

CONSTANT VARIABLE
100 ground balls thrown by a 100 ground balls hit by a
pitching machine…constant batter…different bounce and
velocity, same spot on the roll characteristics, different
field, same bounce and roll spots on the field; forces
characteristics; can master player to move and adapt to
the fundamentals of fielding. the ever-changing demands.
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Improving Performance
• Error Identification and Diagnosis
–Analyzing the skill:
1. Compare athlete technique to
correct technique
2. Determine the cause of the
error(s)
– Technique, physiological
deficiencies,
inaccurate/delayed decision
making, drill design,
psychological factors
3. Select which error to correct –
only one at a time! Copyright © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.
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Feedback as an Intervention Strategy
• Shapes a learner’s efforts to achieve the task
goal
–Can reinforce a behavior
–Provide information about the correctness of a
performance attempt
–Explain why an error occurred
–Prescribe how to fix an error and motivate athletes
to continue working towards their goals
• Must consider the frequency, timing, amount,
precision, and the learner’s task related
experiences
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 Feedback (cont.)
• Feedback frequency
• Faded feedback: feedback is gradually reduced as
the athletes’ skills increase
• Bandwidth feedback: feedback only provided when
athlete’s performance falls outside a range of
acceptable error tolerance
• Learner-regulated feedback: feedback only
provided when the athlete requests it

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Feedback (cont.)
• Choose words carefully
• One correction at a time
• Positive
• Short and Simple
• Matches the learner’s developmental level
• Use specifics

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More Intervention Strategies

• Manipulating Task and/or Practice Variables

• Creates action possibilities that allow for the emergence of improved
techniques and/or tactics by capitalizing on the process of guided
discovery

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