THREE STAGES OF MOTOR
LEARNING
BLANCO, YVONNE
GAITE, JERICHO
PALISOC, DARWIN DAVE
SEBIDO, KENTH
MOTOR LEARNING
What is Motor Learning?
Motor learning is the result of complex brain processes that happen in response to
practice or experience of a certain skill, leading to changes in the central nervous system that
enable the production of a new motor skill, according to the definition of motor learning as "set
of internal processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent
changes in the capability for skilled behavior." There are three stages in which motor learning
occurs:
Three stages of Motor learning
1. Cognitive Stage– The objective of this early phase of
motor learning is to create a general knowledge of the skill.
The learner must ascertain the skill's goal before starting to
consider how the environment will affect their capacity to
perform the skill. The cognitive stage is the period during
which the goals of the task and the appropriate movement
sequence to achieve these goals are determined. At this stage, the learner is a novice (i.e.
she / he is new to the skill and task at hand) and makes a conscious effort to develop an
understanding of what to do. Learning tends to be explicit in this stage.
The first phase is called the cognitive stage, also known as the novice phase of
learning. During this stage of learning the performer is trying to work out what to do. The
theory suggests learners attempt to cognitively understand
the requirements and parameters of movements.
Imagine we have an athlete learning to serve in
Tennis. To begin with the novice has to concentrate very
hard, attending to many, if not all aspects of the serve. The
amount of information that are trying to process can see
overwhelming:
Hold do I hold the racket?
Where should my feet be?
How should I move my arms?
How do I time the movement?
Where am I hitting to?
The questions above highlight the self-talk that might be going on inside an athlete’s
head when learning to serve. At this stage we expect performers to be inconsistent and make
many mistakes. They will also be actively taking part in problem-solving and trying to make
sense of the task.
2. Associative Stage
During this stage, the learner begins to
demonstrate a more refined movement through practice.
Now that the learner has had some practice and has
identified various stimuli that may occur, they can focus
on “how to do” moving on from the “what to do” in the
first stage. Here, visual cues become less important and
proprioceptive cues become very important. Proprioceptive cues refer to the learner focusing
more on how their body is moving in space and what input is being felt from their joints and
muscles.
Examples of proprioception include being able to walk
or kick without looking at your feet or being able touch your
nose with your eyes closed. The more practice, the more
proprioceptive input the learner receives to aide learning.
Therefore, the more practice the better!
What is Associative learning?
Associative learning is a method or process wherein the learner associates a certain
response to an object or a stimulus resulting in a positive or negative outcome. It links ideas
to continually reinforce one another. Associative Learning can be habitual conditioning or
what is called Operant Conditioning, and the other one is a more controlled type of
conditioning called Classical Conditioning. These two types give us a better understanding of
the conditions of human behavior.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process wherein
rewards and punishments are used in order to reinforce a certain behavior. It associates one
behavior to its effect, focusing on the consequences that influence it. Actions or behaviors
that are followed by an advantageous outcome is more likely to be repeated than behavior
that have a less desirable outcome. This behavior can be observed in our day-to-day
activities.
Example: Performing well in a swimming competition (behavior) become associate with
getting awards (consequence).
(Behavior) (Consequence)
Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning is another type of Associative Learning in which the subject
associates one idea with another. Classical Conditioning is a learning process wherein two
stimuli are continually reinforced with one another until it reaches the point wherein the first
stimulus will elicit the same reaction as the second stimulus. It is also called respondent
conditioning.
Example: A child associates going to a doctor’s office (stimulus 1) with getting a painful
injection (stimulus 2).
Doctor’s office (stimulus 1) Painful injection (stimulus 2)
3. Autonomous Stage – During this final stage of learning, the motor skills become mostly
automatic. By achieving this stage, it required long-term practices of motor movement and
add a little cognitive is required to get the movement done. Additional to that the performer
or athlete analyzing their own performance and their own actions and it have high levels of
smoothness, efficiency, and accuracy to be performed without stress. In addition, The Fitts
and Posner paradigm views this as the last phase of motor learning. To achieve the
autonomous level, years of instruction are frequently necessary. This stage is achieved when
the learner has mastered all sub parts of a skill and are able to combine them to perform the
whole sequence automatically with precision.
REFERENCE
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and-strategies-to-improve-acquisition-of-motor-skills/
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development-the-theory-of-jean-piaget/
[Link] Back_to_the_Basics#:~:text=The
%20cognitive%20stage%20is%20the,understanding%20of %20what%20to%20do
