CHAPTER 3

CLASSIFICATION OF MOTOR
SKILLS
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOME

At the end of the learning experience’

students must be able to:
1. Define and identify classification of motor
skills.
2. Assess how motor skills be meaningfully
classified.
3. Analyze how to classify motor skills.
 CLASSICATION OF MOTOR
SKILLS
• Analysis of movement skills enables us to
understand their requirements and decide on the
best ways to teach, practise and improve them. To
analyse movement skills psychologists have
identified a range of characteristics.

• It is difficult to be precise about classification, as

skills may have elements of all the characteristics
or may change depending on the situation in
which the skill is performed.
 SKILL CONTINUUM’S
• The use of continuum allows us to show that skills have
characteristics to a greater or lesser extent depending on the
situation.

• A continuum is an imaginary scale between two extremes and

is usually represented in linear form, eg.

Freezing Cold Warm Hot Boiling

 THE SIX CONTINUA
• MUSCULAR INVOLVEMENT • PACING (SELF-PACED-
(GROSS-FINE) CONTINUUM EXTERNALLY PACED)
CONTINUUM

• ENVIRONMENTAL
INFLUENCE (OPEN-CLOSED) • DIFFICULTY (SIMPLE-
CONTINUUM COMPLEX) CONTINUUM

• CONTINUITY (DISCRETE- • ORGANISATIONAL (LOW-

SERIAL-CONTINUOUS) HIGH) CONTINUUM
CONTINUUM
 MUSCULAR INVOLVEMENT
CONTINUUM (GROSS-FINE)
This classification examines the precision of the movement.

Gross skills: involve large muscle groups with little precision.

Fine skills: involve small muscle groups and intricate movements. They
usually involve accuracy and hand-eye coordination.

Gross Fine

Running or wrist/finger
Swimming a spin bowl in
Cricket
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONTINUUM
(OPEN-CLOSED)
This is concerned with how the environmental conditions affect
the skill

• The environment includes all factors that affect the performance in that
situation eg. Opponents, team mates, playing surface.

• If the skill is performed outdoors the weather may also be a factor.

Open skills: These skills are affected by the environment and have to be adapted
to suit the situation. They are predominantly perceptual and involve decision
making. and are usually externally paced.
Closed skills: Are not affected by the environment and are always performed in
the same way. They follow a set technical model and are usually self-paced.

Open Closed

A chest pass in A vault in

Netball/basketball gymnastics
 Continuity Continuum
(Discrete-Serial-Continuous)
Discrete skills: have a clear beginning and end.

Serial skills: have a number of discrete elements that are put

together in a definite order to make a movement or sequence

Continuous skills: have no definite beginning or end. The the end of

one cycle of the movement is the start of the next.

Discrete Serial Continuous

A catch Triple jump Cycling

A penalty kick Swimming
 PACING CONTINUUM
(SELF-PACED- EXTERNALLY PACED)
This concerns the level of control the performer has over the timing of
the movement skill, relating to when starts and the rate at which it is
performed.

Self-paced skills: The performer decides when to start the movement and
the speed at which it is carried out. These are often closed skills.

Externally paced skills: The control of the skill is determined by the

environment, such as a starting gun, opponents or the weather. They are
often open skills and involve reacting to the situation.

Self-paced Externally paced

High jump Receiving a pass

Serving in badminton in hockey,
Windsurfing
 Difficulty continuum
(Simple-complex)
• The complexity of the movement is determined by the amount of information
to be processed, decision making involved, time available, quantity of sub-
routines and use of feedback.

Simple skills: have little information to be processed, few decisions to be

made, few sub-routines in which the speed and timing are not critical.
Simple skills may still be difficult to learn or perform!

Complex skills: have a high perceptual load and many decisions need to
be made. The skill will have many sub-routines where speed and timing are
critical and will involve feedback.

Simple Complex

Sprinting Tennis serve

Swimming Volleyball smash
 ORGANISATONAL CONTINUUM
( LOW – HIGH)
• This concerns how closely linked the sub-routines of the movement are.

Low organisation skills: are made up of sub-routines that can easily be

separated, practiced by themselves and then put back into the whole skill.

High organisation skills: in these the sub-routines are very closely linked
together and difficult to separate without disrupting the skill. Highly
organised skills are usually practiced as a whole.

Low High

Swimming stokes Cartwheel

Trampoline sequence Golf swing