C.2.1.1 Learning as a process leading to a relatively permanent behavioral change Notes

Skill

1. Goal-Oriented: Skills are performed to achieve a specific outcome (e.g., typing a letter, making a golf putt, or saving a goal in soccer).
2. Performed with Maximum Certainty: A skilled performer can consistently achieve success (e.g., maintaining balance while cycling or making 90% of basketball shots).
3. Efficient Use of Energy: Skilled actions are performed with minimal energy expenditure (e.g., steering a car, maintaining streamlined form in swimming, or skiing smoothly downhill).
4. Learned Through Practice: Skills require experience, repetition, and feedback from a teacher or coach to develop proficiency.

Types of Skills

1. Motor Skill: Focuses on movement with minimal cognitive involvement.
   1. Examples: weightlifting, sprint racing, wrestling.
2. Cognitive Skill: Requires significant thinking and decision-making rather than movement.
   1. Examples: playing chess, understanding rules and strategies in soccer and field hockey.
3. Perceptual Skill: Involves interpreting sensory information to make decisions.
   1. Examples: reading the green in golf, assessing a rock face before climbing.

Ability vs. Skill:

1. Ability is innate and inherited (perceptual & motor attributes).
2. Skill is learned through practice with a specific goal.
3. Types of Abilities:
   1. Perceptual-motor abilities: helps process information on movement (e.g., tennis player’s coordination for a forehand).
   2. Motor abilities: relate to physical movement (e.g., speed & strength for a 100m sprint).
4. Key Formula:
   1. To perform skillfully, one must possess the necessary abilities and select the correct technique for the situation, represented in the formula:
      1. Formula: Skill = Ability + Selection of the Correct Technique

Principles of Skill Learning

1. Performance is transitory, meaning it varies from attempt to attempt.
   1. Example: A beginner golfer may sink a putt by chance, but this does not indicate mastery.
2. Learning is evident when a skill can be performed consistently and accurately.
   1. Example: An experienced golfer's putts are clustered around the hole, demonstrating learned precision.

Factors Contributing to Inter- and Intra-Individual Differences in the Rate of Learning

1. Physical Demands

1. Some skills require a certain level of physical ability that individuals may not have yet.

2. Physical Maturation

1. An individual may be physically mature but still lack the fitness level required for a task.
2. In such cases, physical training is needed before skill acquisition

3. Motivation

1. The most important factor affecting learning.
   1. A learner must have a desire to improve.
   2. Motivation is closely linked to physical maturation, as individuals tend to learn when they feel ready.

4. Readiness for Learning

1. Learners generally recognize when they are prepared to acquire a new skill.

Approaches to Motor Learning

Competing Models of Motor Learning

1. Information Processing Model: Based on schema theory, which emphasizes cognitive processing in learning motor skills.
2. Ecological Model: Rooted in ecological dynamics theory, focusing on how individuals interact with their environment to learn movements.

Traditional Linear Pedagogy

1. Follows the information processing theory of learning.
2. Learning progresses linearly through cognitive stages (cognitive → associative → autonomous).
3. As movement proficiency improves, cognitive processing demands decrease during performance.
4. Skills should be broken down into simple components for effective learning.