Recording, monitoring and evaluating performance development

Question 1

Why should you monitor progress during your development plan?

Answer 1

1. It allows you to see if your approaches are working:
   - If your approaches are working, you can stick with them
   - If your approaches aren’t working, you can adapt them to more suitable or interesting approaches.
2. It allows you to check if you are meeting each short-term target in your sessions and if suitable progress is being made towards the long-term target:
   - If you are not reaching each short-term target and progress is slow towards the long-term one, you can lower your targets and/or extend the length of your development plan.
3. It allows you to express how well you think a session went in relation to how challenging it was.
   - If you did not find it challenging enough, you can increase the intensity in the next session to avoid hitting a plateau.

Question 2

Why should you evaluate how effective your development plan was?

Answer 2

1. It lets you look back and measure how much improvement have been made in both the identified factor and the whole performance:
   - This can help you identify new weaknesses which you can then take back through the cycle of analysis to further develop your performance.
2. By looking back, you can measure which approaches worked best for you during your development plan:
   - Knowing this can lead to you using the same approaches in the future if they are suitable to your new weaknesses.

Question 3

What are the methods of monitoring and evaluating our development?

Answer 3

Some of the main methods used in these processes are :

• training diary
• coach feedback
• re-testing

Question 4

What can a training diary be used for?

Answer 4

This method can be used for all factors. It is predominantly used during monitoring processes. This is because it requires you to record information about every single session.

Question 5

What is the training diary?

Answer 5

The training diary is a book with a page for each session. For each session, you record details on:

• your session goal
• what you did in the session
• how you thought the session went

You would then use these thoughts and feelings to prepare for your next session.

(For example, if you thought that positive self-talk was not helping you control your anger in one session, you could change the approach to deep breathing in the next session.)

Question 6

Benefits of a training diary?

Answer 6

• It is well laid out and easy to complete so you are unlikely to make mistakes completing it.
• Provides a permanent record of information so you can make comparisons between sessions.
• By putting in your thoughts and feelings, it lets you understand why something worked and helps with planning your next session.

Question 7

Limitations of a training diary?

Answer 7

• If you forget to do it immediately after sessions your reflections may be inaccurate as not fresh in your mind.

Question 8

What should you do when using a training diary?

Answer 8

1. Complete your training diary immediately after every session as your thoughts and feelings will be fresh in your head. This will ensure your entries are valid and can help you plan the appropriate next steps.
2. You should have your coach check over your entries to ensure you have written the correct details about your session. This will ensure your entries are reliable and that accurate comparisons between sessions can be made.
3. Leave the training diary at a secure location in the training ground so it’s always there for you to access and write comments in. This will ensure you do not forget to take it with you and miss out on writing the correct session details and appropriate thoughts and feelings.

Question 9

When is coach feedback used?

Answer 9

This method is also predominantly used for monitoring progress due to its ongoing nature.

Question 10

What is coach feedback?

Answer 10

A coach will likely provide you with feedback during and after every session and performance.

It can be used for the majority of factors however it can be difficult for a coach to provide feedback on some emotional factors like fear and sadness. This is because only you know how you truly feel and although you may appear happy on the outside, you may be putting on a brave face to hide negative emotions.

When providing feedback, a coach will tell you the positives and negatives of your training performance. Good coaches will:

• tell you why something was good
• tell you how areas can be improved
• provide advice on what they think you need to do in the next session based on this
• tell you where improvements have been made in relation to previous sessions

Question 11

Benefits of coach feedback?

Answer 11

• Getting information from a knowledgeable source so it is likely the feedback received will be accurate.
• Receiving feedback during sessions gives you a clearer understanding of your progress as it is fresh in your head and changes can be made quickly.
• Receiving feedback on how to develop performance further can help you plan appropriate next steps.

Question 12

Limitations of coach feedback?

Answer 12

• If your relationship with the coach is poor, they may be overly harsh which can lead to the next steps not being developmentally correct for you.

Question 13

What should your coach do during coach feedback?

Answer 13

1. Your coach should provide feedback during sessions as it can stop you developing bad habits. This will ensure you can make the relevant changes there and then rather than waiting until your next session. Remember: monitoring is not just from session to session, it is also during sessions.
2. Your coach should tell you how to improve areas identified in sessions as being weak as this can help you set specific short-term goals for your next session. This will ensure you continue to develop the relevant areas of your performance as the development plan goes on.
3. Your coach should put aside any personal differences with you and give you feedback that is fair and as objective as possible. This will ensure the information you receive is correct and the right adaptations can be made in relation your progress.

Question 14

When is re-testing used?

Answer 14

This method is predominantly used to evaluate the effectiveness of a development plan. This is because you will re-test a data gathering method at the end of your plan and make comparisons to the baseline measurement.

Re-testing can be used for all factors as long as the method used is appropriate to that factor.

Question 15

What is re-testing?

Answer 15

Re-testing is when you use the same methods for the data gathering and evaluation processes at the start and end of your development plan. It involves:

• completing methods in the exact same circumstances as your baseline measurement. If you did the initial method at home on your own, you would do the re-test at home on your own.
• doing the method whilst in a similar mental state to the baseline measurement.

Having completed the re-test, you then compare the results to your baseline results and measure the differences. This lets you place a judgement on the success of your plan.

Question 16

Benefits of re-testing?

Answer 16

• Easy to make comparisons between the two sets of results to measure the success of the plan.
• Some re-testing methods like the PPW, can identify new areas for development which can help you set the appropriate next steps.
• Having completed the method at the start of your development plan, it will be easy to complete and no mistakes should be made.

Question 17

Limitations of re-testing?

Answer 17

• If you carry out the re-test whilst in a low mood, you could be unfairly harsh on yourself which can lead to invalid comparisons and judgements being made.

Question 18

What should you do when re-testing?

Answer 18

1. Complete your re-test in the exact same conditions as the baseline measurement so you do not have any additional distractions that can put you off completing the test. This will ensure that the process of completion will be similar and valid comparisons can be made.
2. Complete your re-test with a similar mindset to the baseline measurement so you can complete both methods with similar feelings to your capabilities. Give judgements about yourself whilst feeling the same way makes comparisons valid.
3. Have a coach read your re-test results so they can check how accurate they are. This will ensure your results are reliable and that accurate judgements on the success of your development plan can be made.

Question 19

What changes can you make to a development plan?

Answer 19

• change the location of your session
• change your training partner
• increase or decrease the intensity of your sessions
• make your goals easier or harder
• add in opposition
• increase or decrease the time of sessions
• change the approach being used
• increase or decrease the frequency of your sessions

Question 20

Adaptations for mental factors? (visualisation)

Answer 20

Change location

If you monitor progress and find that you have mastered this approach at home, you can change the location to the training group.

This will help you gradually become more accustomed to doing this approach in front of others and prepare you for game like situations.

Change number of repetitions

If during monitoring you find that you are becoming calmer in five reps, you can decrease the reps to three.

This will help you become calmer quicker which will help in game like situations when time is limited.

Question 21

Adaptations for emotional factors? (deep breathing)

Answer 21

Change frequency

If during monitoring, you find you are not yet mastering deep breathing, you can increase the frequency from two to four times a week.

Doing it more often will increase your chances of mastering the approach and help you control your anger over a shorter space of time.

Change approach

If you comment in your training diary that you feel like deep breathing is starting to get boring, you can change your approach to positive self-talk.

Doing this will ensure you stay motivated as you are doing something different to control your anger, which can lead to you trying your hardest in sessions again.

Question 22

Adaptations for social factors? (team building games)

Answer 22

Change who you are working with

If during monitoring, you find you are undoing the Human Knot well with the same group of people, you could change and do this with other teammates.

This will ensure you get to know everyone in your team rather than just the same people and build bonds with more teammates.

Change number of teammates

If during monitoring, you have worked out how to do the Human Knot with six people, you could increase the number to eight.

This will make the problem of solving the Human Knot harder and ensure you have to communicate more in order to be successful.

Question 23

Adaptations for physical factors? (fitness)

Answer 23

Change intensity

If during monitoring you discover the weight you are lifting during training is too heavy, then you can reduce the weight to a lower percentage of your 1RM.

This ensures you can actually achieve the short-term goal of the number of reps required to develop your muscular endurance in that session and decreases the risk of injury.

Change difficulty

If during monitoring you find that a speed ladders session for agility was starting to become boring, you can add in a skill element to the next speed ladders session.

This ensures you remain motivated as you can take your mind off the monotony of the footwork drill by focusing on performing a smash which will help you continue to give 100% in sessions.

Question 24

Adaptations for physical factors? (skills)

Answer 24

Change approach

If during monitoring you find that your lay-up in basketball is becoming more automatic, you can switch approaches from the repetition drill to a pressure drill.

This will ensure you are suitably challenged as the approach ties in with your higher stage of learning and will therefore continue to push you to new heights.

Change partners

If during monitoring you find that your partner’s feeds in repetition drills are not effective in developing your spike in volleyball, you can switch partners.

This ensures you have a partner who can accurately set you up, which gives you more chances to develop the spike and further your muscle memory.

Question 25

Adaptations for physical factors? (tactics)

Answer 25

Add or remove opposition

If during monitoring you find that your fast break in handball keeps breaking down during opposed practices, you can move the next session back to unopposed practices.

This ensures you have more chance of successfully carrying out the strategy as there is less pressure and confidence amongst team members can grow.

Change priorities
If during monitoring you find that you have developed your team’s long-term goal of counter attacking earlier than expected in football, you can re-prioritise the focus of the development plan to another weakness such as defending set plays.

This ensures you do not waste time on a strength and rather, focus on the development of weaknesses to ensure your team’s all round performance continues to improve.

Question 26

What happens if you have not yet reached your long-term target? (evaluation result)

Answer 26

If this occurs, you could extend the length of your development plan from six weeks to eight weeks. Doing this will give you more time to achieve the original aim set out at the start of the plan.

Question 27

What happens if although you have met your long-term goal of developing your skill accuracy, a new physical weakness, flexibility, has been identified? (evaluation result)

Answer 27

If you identify a new weakness, you need to take it back through the cycle of analysis. Your immediate task will be to collect data and obtain a baseline measurement as well as find out why it is weak. From there, you can begin to set a long-term goal and create a specific development plan.

Question 28

What happens if approaches like positive self-talk were very effective during the mental development plan? (evaluation result)

Answer 28

If you feel certain approaches have been effective, you could include them in future development plans if they are applicable to your new weakness. This will ensure you feel positive when approaching your new development plan as you know these approaches actually work for you.