Chapters 11-13 Flashcards
What is performance?
It is defined as observable behaviour (in the case of motor skills, motor behaviour)
What is learning?
It is defined as a change in the capability of an individual to perform a motor skill.
Learning is inferred from a permanent improvement in performance occurring through practice over time.
One of the most important aspects of motor skill performance?
Learning.
In the context of motor skills, learning implies?
That a change in movement has occurred over a certain period of time.
Feedback is essential?
For learning to occur.
T or F: It is not possible to measure (or observe) learning directly.
True.
Learning must be inferred from?
Performance.
When assessing learning, it is important to make every effort to take what into account?
take the effects of other performance variables into account (for e.g., stress levels, emotional state, environmental conditions, etc.).
When individuals learn to perform motor skills, the learning that occurs can be assessed by?
examining several different performance characteristics, each of which will change over time as learning takes place.
There are four key performance characteristics associated with the learning of motor skills. They are?
Improvement
Consistency
Persistence
Adaptability
What is Improvement?
Skill performance improves over time
What is Consistency?
Performance consistency increases (becomes more stable)
What is Persistence?
The improvement (change in behaviour) persists for a long period of time
What is Adaptability?
Skill performance can be adapted to a variety of different performance contexts
What are assessment Methods?
How each of the four performance characteristics are used to assess motor learning.
The assessment methods, as well as the corresponding performance characteristic, are?
Observing Practice Performance
Associative Stage
Autonomous Stage
What is Observing Practice Performance?
Relates to performance improvement
Relates to performance consistency
What are the sub groups of what is Observing Practice Performance?
- Retention Tests (relates to persistence)
2. Transfer Tests (relates to adaptability)
What are performance curves?
indicate (using a graph) how performance (and therefore performance improvement) changes over time.
y = the performance outcome measure (e.g., the score, time, speed, distance, force, accuracy, etc.).
x = the time period.
One of these four curves (each of which represents a general trend) typically occurs when a person learns a skill.
For example, you were to teach a group of kids how to skate over a 6-month period while recording their performance at one-month intervals (let’s say you measured the time it takes to skate a certain number of laps)
What is the Linear performance curve?
Shows that the improvement was linear; i.e., that the rate of improvement in skating was consistent across the entire 6-month period.
Linear curves are rare and usually occur only for very short time periods.
What is the Negatively accelerated curve?
The most common for the learning of motor skills
Demonstrates that the rate of performance improvement is very rapid early on, but decreases as the curve moves to the right (i.e., as more time goes by).
What is the Positively accelerated curve?
Represents the complete opposite relationship to the negatively accelerated curve.
Positively accelerated curves are usually associated with motor skills that are quite difficult to learn.
Ex. learning to play piano.
What is the Ogive (s-shaped) curve?
Is a combination of both the positively accelerated and negatively accelerated curves, and indicates a rapid rate of improvement early on, followed by slower rates towards the end of the performance period.
It should be noted that performance curves typically use?
Performance outcome measures rather than performance production measures (e.g., kinematics, EMG, force, etc.).
What is retention?
The brain’s ability to retain information; in this case, the motor patterns of the skill that are practiced.
If you don’t practice something for a while, you will forget how to do it.
What happens if you take a break in practice?
However, if you experience the same break in practice once you’ve become proficient at the skill, the same phenomenon will not happen; i.e., there will be no difference in your performance before or after the break. (High level of retention)
What is high level of retention?
what you had learned was so ingrained that it persisted throughout the break. -become permanent
Example of retention tests?
An example would be to administer a performance test (usually specific to a particular skill component) and then schedule a break in practice (usually for several weeks). Once practice resumes, the participants repeat the test. If the performance tests are different, then some of what was learned before the break did not persist. If no difference exists, then the motor pattern of the skill component you had been working on persisted, despite the break.
What is the purpose of retention tests?
The purpose of retention tests are to assess and determine those aspects of motor skill performance that persist.
What are retention tests?
A test that determines how much of what has been learned has been retained.
Retention tests require a temporary break in practice.
What are transfer tests?
A test involving a novel situation in which a motor skill must be adapted to a new context.
What is the ability to adjust motor skill performance to varying conditions?
The ability to adjust motor skill performance to varying conditions is called adaptability (which is the fourth performance characteristic used to assess learning) Ex. NFL kicker has to adapt to different distances of kicking.
The greater your proficiency…
The better you’ll be able to adapt your skill performance to different conditions.
Transfer is an important aspect of motor learning that is generally more applicable to what kind of skill?
open skills than to closed skills.
What is transfer?
This capacity to adapt skill performance to different conditions (The more skilled you are, the easier it will be for you to make the necessary adjustments in your skill performance.)
Varying the context characteristics include?
Change the availability of feedback; e.g., perform a synchronized swimming or gymnastics routine without auditory feedback.
Change the physical environment; e.g., shooting free throws in a game situation in a gym vs. practicing on an outdoor court.
Change the physical characteristics of the performer; e.g., perform the skill with different levels of arousal level, fatigue, etc.
Varying the skill characteristics include?
Change the level of skill difficulty; e.g., increase the tempo of the skill, add or subtract different skill components (e.g., perform a double back tuck vs. a single).
Change the timing of the skill; e.g., different practice drills or types of training are usually used to accomplish this.
What is the dynamical systems approach?
views learning as a process in which the performance of a motor skill is characterized by a progression from one stable coordination pattern (or state) to another.
In the transition phase in which the performance is?
highly erratic (unstable) and inconsistent, not the outcome.
In order to learn how to perform a new coordination pattern, the learner must?
Experience and transition through a period of instability in which the performance of the skill will be poor (i.e., erratic and unpredictable).
T or F: instability and poor performance is not a sign that learning is taking place.
False, it is.
Learning cannot be measured directly; it can only be?
inferred from performance.
Consequently, this can be a problem if performance suffers while learning is actually taking place.