Designing a Motor

Learning Program for

Sports Training
 Some practical concerns
• Many skills to master
• Different skill levels among athletes
• Finite amount of practice time
 S o m e so u rce s o f so lu tio n s

•Structuring the learning experience

•Providing feedback during the learning
experience
Structuring the learning
experience
 Practicing several different tasks
• Blocked and random practice
• Why random practice is so effective
– The Shea and Morgan experiment
– More meaningful and distinctive learning
– Spacing of movements: the forgetting hypothesis
• Practical implications of blocked and random
practice
• How to use blocked and random practice during
instruction
 Blocked and random practice
• Blocked practice – a practice sequence in
which individuals repeatedly rehearse
the same task
• Random practice – a practice sequence in
which individuals perform a number of
different tasks in no particular order, thus
avoiding or minimizing consecutive
repetitions of any single task
BLOCKED PRACTICE
RANDOM PRACTICE
Why random practice is so effective
Contextual interference effect
•

• Blocked trial conditions lead to more effective practice

performance than random conditions.
• However, when subjects are given a retention test, those
who had random practice in acquisition outperform
those who had blocked practice.
• Therefore, even though random practice is less effective
during practice, it is better for learning than blocked
conditions.
• The benefits of random practice are evident in both
random and blocked retention tests, but especially in
the former.
• The Shea and Morgan experiment (1979)
The Shea and Morgan experiment (1979)

Barrier knockdown task used

by Shea and Morgan (1979). 
The stimulus lights
indicated which pattern
hung above the lights was
to be performed.  The
pattern indicated the
sequence in which 3 of the
6 hinged barriers were to
be knocked down.  After the
warning light came on, 1 of
the 3 stimulus lights was
turned on.  This indicated
that the subject was to
leave the start button, pick
up the tennis ball and
knock the barriers down in
the prescribed sequence.
Performance on movement-speed tasks under random and
blocked conditions (Shea and Morgan, 1979)
More meaningful and distinctive learning:
•

Elaboration hypothesis
•

• Random practice forces the learner to become

more actively engaged in the learning process
by preventing simple repetitions of actions.
• Random practice gives the learner more
meaningful and distinguishable memories of
the various tasks increasing memory strength
and decreasing confusion among tasks.
Spacing of movements: The Forgetting Hypothesis
•

• Random practice causes the learner to forget

the short-term solutions to the movement
problem after each task change.
• Forgetting the short-term solution forces the
learner to generate the solution again on the
task’s next trial, which is beneficial to learning.
• Retrieval practice – the act of retrieving a motor
program and its parameters from long-term
memory; facilitated by random-practice
 Practical implications of blocked and
random practice
• Repetition – relatively
ineffective for long-
term learning
• Blocked practice gives
a false sense of skill
• Criterion version of the
skill is usually not
blocked
 Major processes Error
Input
in the conceptual
model subject to
alterations during Stimulus
Identification
random practice
Executive Response
Selection

Response
programming
Desired state Com
parat
or
Ambient vision

Motor
M2
Program
Effector
Spinal
M1
Cord
Actual
Muscles state
Proprioceptive Feedback

Exteroceptive Feedback
Output
Focal vision
 How to use blocked and random
practice during instruction
• For the first few attempts at a new skill in the verbal-
cognitive stage, blocked practice might be slightly
more effective than random practice, perhaps because
the learner needs several attempts to produce the
action successfully just once.
• After this stage, the instructor should do everything
possible to structure practice to avoid repetitious
blocked practice.
• Research evidence suggests that the benefits of random
practice are enhanced by large task differences on
successive trials. This fosters forgetting the solutions
of each task before resuming its practice on a later
attempt.
Gradual progression from blocked to
random practice for volleyball skills

Blocked Spike, spike, spike, spike, spike, spike

Block, block, block, block, block, block
Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass

Mix of Spike, spike, block, block, pass, pass

blocked and Block, block, spike, spike, pass, pass
random Spike, spike, pass, pass, block, block

Random Spike, pass, block, pass, block, spike

Block, pass, spike, pass, spike, block
Pass, block, spike, block, pass, spike
Practicing several versions of the same
task
• Constant practice and varied practice
• Schema development: motor programs
and parameters
• The role of varied practice in schema
development
 Classes of tasks
– Common sequencing among the elements
– Common temporal, or rhythmical, organization
– Usually (but not necessarily) the same body parts
used
– Differences only in terms of the values of surface
features (e.g. speed), specified by different
movement parameters
• Once learned, a GMP can be applied to many
specific situations through the specification of
the movement parameters in the response-
programming stage.
 Constant practice and varied practice

• Constant practice – a practice sequence in

which people rehearse only one variation of a
given class of tasks during a session
• Varied practice – a practice sequence in which
people rehearse a number of variations of a
given class of tasks during a session
• Practice must be varied, taking into account the
many possibilities actually experienced in the
target version of the skill.
ecrof gniworht rof eulav retemaraP

Medium

Low
High

Distance thrown (m)

Schema development: motor programs and
parameters
• Schema – a set of rules relating to the various
outcomes of a person’s actions (e.g. short
distance of a throw) to the parameter values
the person chooses to produce those
outcomes (e.g. small amount of force)
• Parameter values – the values assigned by a
performer to the parameters of a GMP (e.g.
rapid movement time, short amplitude, right
arm); allow performers to adjust a movement
pattern to meet specific environmental
demands
The schema relating force parameter values to throwing distances. To
produce a throw of 40 m, the performer uses the schema to select a
force with a value of D.

High
D
C
ecrof rof eulav retemaraP

Schema
B

Low
10 20 30 40

Distance thrown (m)

 The role of varied practice in schema
development
• Studies show that constant-practice groups
outperform varied-practice groups in practice,
but varied-practice groups perform better in
novel versions of the practice task
• One interpretation of these findings is that
people acquire schemas when they practice
and varied practice enhances the
development of the schemas
• Varied practice enhances the flexibility or
adaptability of movement production, allowing
people to apply what they have learned in
practice to similar actions they have not
attempted before
 Random or blocked practice versus
varied or constant practice
• Blocked practice – a • Constant practice – a
practice sequence in practice sequence in
which individuals which people rehearse
repeatedly rehearse only one variation of a
the same task given class of tasks
• Random practice – a during a session
practice sequence in • Varied practice – a
which individuals practice sequence in
perform a number of which people rehearse
different tasks in no a number of variations
particular order, thus of a given class of
avoiding or minimizing tasks during a session
consecutive repetitions
of any single task
Combining random and varied practice

• Variable practice combined with random

resulted in better gains than blocked.
• Introducing a second task is even better.
 Practicing for consistent and varied
stimulus-response mapping
• Consistent mapping – a performance condition
for which a given stimulus pattern always
requires the same response
• Varied mapping – a performance condition for
which a given stimulus pattern requires
different responses at different times or
different situations
• Automatic responding can be developed in
consistent-mapping tasks and may not be
possible in varied-mapping tasks at all
Providing feedback during the
learning experience
A classification system for all sensory information
 Classifying feedback
• Intrinsic feedback
– Exteroception
– Proprioception
• Extrinsic feedback
– Knowledge of results (KR)
– Knowledge of performance (KP)
 Intrinsic feedback – sensory information that
normally occurs when people produce movements

Exteroception –
• • Proprioception -
sensory information sensory information
that comes primarily arising from within a
from outside a person’s body
person’s body – Body and limb
– Vision position
– Audition – Body and limb
– Touch movement
– Smell – Forces
 Extrinsic (augmented) feedback – sensory
information provided by an outside source

• Knowledge of results (KR) – provided after the

action is completed that indicates how well the
performer achieved the desired movement or
environmental goal
• Knowledge of performance (KP) – provides
information about the quality of movement
produced (e.g. displacement, velocity,
acceleration); also known as kinematic
feedback
Sometimes KR is immediate
Sometimes KR is delayed
• If learners have no knowledge of their own
errors, practice results in no learning
• However, extrinsic feedback in the form of
KR generates rapid and permanent
learning
• Generally, information about errors, from
extrinsic or intrinsic sources, is essential
for learning to occur
 Comparison of KR and KP
Knowledge of results (KR) Knowledge of performance (KP)
Similarities
Verbal
Extrinsic
Provided after the movement
Differences
About environmental outcome About movement production or
patterning
Often redundant with intrinsic Usually distinct from intrinsic
feedback feedback
More useful in laboratory More useful in real-world tasks
Properties of extrinsic feedback
• Motivational properties
• Reinforcing properties
• Informational properties
• Dependency-producing
properties
•
 Motivational properties
• Motivating feedback –
augmented feedback
about a person’s
progress toward goal
achievement that
energizes and directs
the person’s behavior
 Reinforcing properties
• Reinforcement – an event
that follows a person’s
response and
increases the likelihood
that the person will
repeat the response
under similar
circumstances
• Positive
reinforcement – an
event that follows a
person’s response
and, due to its
pleasant nature,
increases the
likelihood that the
person will repeat
the response under
similar
circumstances
• Negative reinforcement –
an event that follows a
person’s response and
consists of the removal of
an unpleasant stimulus,
thereby increasing the
likelihood that the person
will repeat the response
under similar
circumstances
 The Law of Effect
• An action elicited by a stimulus and
followed by pleasant, or rewarding,
consequences tends to be repeated; an
action followed by unpleasant, or
punishing, consequences tends not to
be repeated (Thorndike, 1927).
• Intermittent
reinforcement – a
schedule of
reinforcement in
which feedback is
given only
occasionally
 Informational properties
• Information feedback – feedback that provides
performers with error-correction information;
can be either descriptive or prescriptive
Dependency-producing properties
• Continued feedback tends
to hold performance
errors to a minimum
• Too-frequent feedback
can produce learner
dependency
• Feedback should not be
given every trial; fading,
or gradually reducing,
feedback reduces
withdrawal symptoms
Practical considerations when providing
informational feedback
• Determining whether to give feedback
• Determining what information to give
– Program feedback and parameter feedback
– Visual feedback
– Descriptive and prescriptive feedback
• Determining how much information to give
– Summary feedback
– Average feedback
• Determining how precise to make feedback
• Determining how often to give feedback
 Determining whether to give feedback

• The more complex the skill and the less

experienced the learner, the more
feedback may be needed
• Should help learners search for relevant
intrinsic information
• Once learners have a general idea of task,
they might benefit more from feedback
 A flowchart for determining the provision of
instructional feedback
Sensory
feedback

No No Does learner No
Is learner Provide program
Is task simple? understand pattern
experienced? of motion? feedback

Yes Yes Yes Provide

parameter
feedback
Provide less
frequent
feedback
Provide more
precise
feedback
Intrinsic
feedback Provide
sufficient feedback
when requested
 Determining what information to give

• Program feedback and parameter

feedback
• Visual feedback
• Descriptive and prescriptive feedback
Program feedback and parameter feedback

• Program feedback – feedback that provides

learners with error information about the
fundamental pattern of their movement
• Parameter feedback – feedback that provides
learners with error information about the
parameter values they are selecting to make
their movement fit environmental requirements
Swing your arms back before you throw.

Swing your arms faster.

 Visual feedback

• The most common kind is video replay

• Allows on-the-spot analysis
• Instructors can point out specific cues so
performers can attend to them individually
 Descriptive and prescriptive feedback

• Descriptive feedback – feedback that describes

the errors a learner makes during the
performance of a skill
• Prescriptive feedback– feedback that describes
the errors a learner makes during the
performance of a skill and suggests something
the learner might do to correct the errors
You’re holding the bat wrong.

You’re holding the bat wrong. Hold it like

• Attentional cueing – prescriptive feedback
that directs learners’ attention to the
most pertinent information for correcting
a particular performance error (Janelle
et al, 1997)
Attention-cuing feedback protocol used to promote learning
of a nondominant-hand throwing task

1. Focus on the initial position of the body.

2. Focus on the initial movement of the trunk.
3. Focus on the left arm during the preparatory phase of the swing.
4. Focus on the right foot during the throwing phase.
5. Focus on the hips during the throwing phase.
6. Focus on the shoulders during the throwing phase.
7. Focus on the upper arm and elbow during the throwing phase.
8. Focus on the left hand and the ball during the throwing phase.
9. Focus on the left arm at the point of ball release.
10.Focus on the left arm during the final phase of the throw.
11.
•Good throw.
rist, rotate your hips, make contact in front, bend your knees, and keep yo

And stay relaxed !

Huh?
Types of instructional feedback
Type Function or consideration Example

Program Assists learners in developing fundamental relative “Make the hands move faster
motion pattern than the arms” to convey
importance of a rapid wrist
More useful for beginners or inexperienced action in a bat swing
learners
Parameter Assists learners in adjusting fundamental relative “Swing faster” to convey the
motion pattern need to increase the amount of
force applied
More useful for more experienced learners
Visual Provides learners with a visual depiction of their Video replay of a bat swing to
action convey image from several
More useful for more experienced learners different viewing perspectives
Beginners may need additional verbal cueing
Descriptive Directs learners’ attention to a particular aspect of “Your swing is too stiff” to
the action convey observable characteristic
or action
More useful for more experienced learners
Prescriptive Suggests a specific alteration or correction for the “Relax the hands and move
action them faster” to convey
adjustment that might correct
More useful for beginners or inexperienced observed error
learners
Determining how much information to give

• Summary feedback – feedback given after

a series of performance attempts that
provides the learner with information
about each of the attempts in the series
• Average feedback – feedback given after
a series of performance attempts that
provides the learner with information
about their average performance in the
series
 Lavery’s experiment (1962)

• Simple laboratory motor tasks

• Different feedback schedules
– After each attempt (Immediate)
– After 20 attempts (Summary)
– After each attempt and after 20 attempts
• During practice summary group did worst,
but performed better in no-feedback
tests 1, 2, 3, 4 days later and 1 month
later
 How does summary feedback work?

1. Learners must perform in an independent fashion for a

number of attempts before they receive feedback.
When they receive summary feedback, learners use
this information to make corrections in their general
movement pattern on the next series of attempts
2. Summary feedback produces more stable movements.
Because learners perform a number of attempts
before receiving feedback, they have no reason to
change their movements very much from one
attempt to the next
3. Summary feedback encourages learners to analyze their
own movement-produced feedback. Because they
receive feedback less often, learners are
encouraged to pay more attention to intrinsic
feedback and to develop their own error-detection
skills
4. All of the above
Determining how precise to make feedback

• Constant error (CE) –

the deviation, with
respect to amount
and direction, of the
result of a person’s
movement relative to
some target value
• Bandwidth feedback –
feedback given to
learners only when
their errors exceed a
certain level
Determining how often to give feedback

• Absolute feedback
frequency – total number
of feedback
presentations given for a
series of attempts
• Relative feedback
frequency – proportion of
performance attempts for
which feedback is given;
absolute feedback/
number of attempts X
100
•
• Faded feedback – relative
frequency of feedback
presentation is high during
initial attempts and is
reduced later
• Instantaneous feedback –
provided immediately after
movement completion
• Delayed feedback –
provided several seconds
or more after movement
completion
• Given the choice, learners requested
instructional feedback only 11% of the time
(Janelle et al, 1997)
• Given a complex skill, learners with the most
frequent feedback (100% of attempts)
performed best in a retention test (Wulf, Shea
and Matschiner, 1998)