Lesson 1: MOTOR PERFORMANCE AND MOTOR LEARNING

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the learners are expected to:
1. Understand the different aspects of skills;
2. Explain the relationship between motor performance and motor learning; and
3. Discuss the problem-based approach to motor performance and learning.

MOTOR LEARNING
1. An internal process that reflects the level of an individual’s performance capability and may
be estimated by relatively stable performances.
2. A result from practice, people’s capability for producing the desired action improves.
3. The ability to develop a relatively permanent change in motor skills from novice to skilled
performance through practice or experience by engaging in activities that are currently
beyond an individual’s capabilities (Muratori, Lamberg, Quinn, & Duff, 2013; Gokeler et al,
2013).
4. The study of the processes involved in acquiring and refining skills.
5. Provides key connections between sports training principles and coaching in the real world of
sports, dance and exercise. 

MOTOR PERFORMANCE
1. Is always observable and it is influenced by many factors (e.g. motivation, attention focus,
fatigue, physical condition).
2. A function which involves the precise movement of muscles with intent movement to execute
a specific act.
3. According to Magil (2011) motor performance are as follows:
 Requires body and /or limb movement
 Voluntary
 Goal Directed
 Learned

To determine the success of motor learning and skilled performance the following concepts are
used:
1. Improvement – measuring the skill i.e. archery score, more accurately hitting a target. There
should be a decrease in errors.
2. Consistency – the individual is able to reliably produce the result
3. Retention – Retention tests are used following a delay in practice to determine if permanent
learning has occurred.
4. Transfer – The ability to perform a similar movement, within a different context in which it
was initially learnt is tested (transfer) i.e. changing the amount of force or surface, location
etc (Muratori, Lamberg, Quinn & Duff, 2013).

During the last decade, the growth of perceptual-motor programs for slow learner has made
an important impact on physical education programs. The programs were originally for the slow
learner and the neurologically handicapped, but, if the theories are valid, they have value for children,
whether or not they have learning disabilities.
Good scientific basis for the perceptual-motor programs has not been forthcoming, but
substantiation of program effectiveness comes from empirical judgments and observation. However,
there is enough indication from current programs to warrant consideration of perceptual-motor
principles as they affect the physical education program.
Activity 1

Name: ________________________________
Course/Year&Secion: ___________________ Score
Date Answered: ________________________

1. On your own ideas, how will you explain the relationship between motor performance and
motor learning?
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2. Have you been performing on stage or participating in any sports competition way back
during your senior or junior high school? _________________________ (Yes/No)

3. Explain your answer from No. 2 based on how you understand the definition of Motor
Learning and Performance.
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Lesson 2: MOTOR SKILLS

Ways in Classifying Motor Skills:

1. Can be seen as task.
2. Can also be viewed in terms of the features that distinguished higher-skilled
performers from lower skilled performers.

A Task Perspective: Skill Classification

1. Skills classified by Task Organization
2. Skills by the Relative Importance of Motor and Cognitive Elements
3. Skills Classified by the level of Environmental Predictability

Three characteristics that have been used to classify tasks:

1. The way the task is organized.
2. The relative importance of motor and cognitive elements.
3. Level of environmental predictability surrounding skill performance.

SKILLS CLASSIFIED BY TASK ORGANIZATION:

1. Discrete Skill
- A skill task that is organized in such a way that the action is usually brief and has
a well-defined beginning and end.
- Is prominent in the context of many sports and games, especially those involving
the distinct acts of hitting, kicking, jumping, throwing and catching.
2. Serial Skill
- A type of skill organization that is characterized by several discrete actions
connected together in a sequence, often with the order of the actions being crucial
to performance success.
- Discrete skills are strung together to form more complicated actions.
3. Continuous Skill
- A skill organized in such a way that the action unfolds without a recognizable
beginning and end in an ongoing and often repetitive e.g. Swimming, running,
skating, cycling.
- This skill either the performer or some environmental barrier or marker e.g. pool
wall or a finish line.
- Requires longer time.

DISCRETE-SERIAL-CONTINUOUS SKILL DIMENSION

Discrete skills Serial Skills Continuous Skills
Distinct beginning and end Discrete actions linked No distinct beginning or end
together
Throwing a dart Hammering a nail Steering a car
Catching a ball Gymnastics routine Swimming
Sit-to stand transfer Brushing Teeth Ice Skating

Skills Classified by Relative Importance of Motor and Cognitive Elements

1. Motor Skill
- A skill to which the primary determinants of success are the quality of the
movement that the performer produces.
2. Cognitive Skill
- A skill for which the primary determinant of success is the quality of the
performer’s decisions regarding what to do.

MOTOR-COGNITIVE SKILL DIMENSION

Motor Skills Cognitive Skills
Decision making minimized Some decision making Decision making minimized
Motor Control Minimized Some motor control Motor control minimize
High jumping Playing quarterback Playing chess
Weight lifting Driving a race car Cooking a meal
Changing a flat tire Walking in a busy airport terminal Coaching a sport

Skills Classified by the Level of Environmental Predictability

1. Open Skill
- A skill performed in an environment that is unpredictable or in motion and that
requires individuals to adopt their movements in response to dynamic properties
of the environment.
2. Closed Skill-

Coaches can analyze sports skills by identifying the following:

1. The motor abilities necessary for sports performance.
2. Using a sport skill task analysis can help in teaching sport skills, aid in problem
solving, and predict future performance.

 Classification of Motor Skills

1. Gross Motor Skills
2. Fine Motor Skills

Types of Motor Skills

1. Fine motor skills
- Are involved in smaller movements.
2. Gross motor skills
- Are involved in movement and coordination of the arms, legs and other large body
parts and movements
3. Simple skills
- Are made up of basic movement actions and are not difficult to perform.
4. Complex skills
- Involve a lot more thought and concentration and are more difficult to perform.
5. Discrete skills
- Are brief, simple, well - defined actions that have a clear beginning and end.
6. Self-paced skill
- Is one where the rate at which they are performed is decided by the performer.
7. Externally paced skill
- Is the one where other factor in the environment decide when you carry out a
skilled action.
8. Open and closed skills
- Football/ hockey

FLEISHMAN’S TAXONOMY OF MOTOR ABILITIES 1964

Physical Proficiency Abilities
Strength Explosive/Static/Trunk
Flexibility/Speed Dynamic/Extent/Speed of limb movement
Balance Static/Dynamic/Balance objects
Coordination Multilimb/Gross Body
Endurance Stamina/Dynamic Strength

Perceptual Motor Abilities

Control Precision Control movements with larger muscle groups
Rate Control Continuous anticipatory adjustments
Aiming Accurate hand movements
Response Orientation Quick decisions with multiple response
Reaction Time React to stimulus
Manual Dexterity Large objects with hand
Finger Dexterity Small objects with fingers
Arm-Hand Steadiness Move hand and fingers
Wrist and Finger Speed Rapidly move fingers and wrist

Classifying Motor Skills

Classification of skills is done through the use of six continua. The continua we use
are based on the following categories:
1. Muscular Involvement
2. Environmental Influence
3. Continuity
4. Pacing
5. Difficulty
6. Organization

Three Stages of Motor Learning

1. Cognitive Stage
- This stage involves information processing.
- Also called the verbal–motor stage (Adams, 1971)
- This stage is verbal–cognitive in nature (Schmidt & Lee, 2005) because it
involves the conveyance (verbal) and acquisition (cognition) of new information.
In this stage, the person is trying to process information in an attempt to
cognitively understand the requirements and parameters of motor movement.
- Characterized as having large gains in performance and inconsistent performance.
- During this stage instruction, guidance, slow-motion drills, video analysis,
augmented feedback, and other coaching techniques are highly effective (Schmidt
& Lee, 2005).
- During the cognitive stage it is important that the learner is provided with the
necessary information, guidance, and time to establish sound fundamentals of
movement.
- Sometimes making errors and taking a constructivist approach to coaching and
learning can be useful.
For the new learner, the problem to be solved in the cognitive stage is understanding
what to do (Schmidt & Lee, 2005). It would be extremely difficult for someone to learn a
skill without receiving any prior knowledge about the skill, whether that knowledge is visual
or verbal.
2. Associative Stage
- The associative stage is characterized as much less verbal information, smaller
gains in performance, conscious performance, adjustment making, awkward and
disjointed movement, and taking a long time to complete.
- During this stage the athlete works at making movement adjustments and
stringing together small movement skills.
- This stage is also called the motor stage (Adams, 1971) because the problem to be
solved in the associative stage is learning how to perform the skill (Schmidt &
Lee, 2005).
- From the cognitive perspective, the athlete is attempting to translate declarative
knowledge into procedural knowledge.
- Athlete is transforming what to do into how to do.
Highly successful athletes and highly effective coaches are always looking for ways
to get better. Consequently, they frequently revisit the cognitive stage and then the
associative stage of motor learning. Revisiting these stages is the relearning process.
3. Autonomous Stage
- This is the final stage of motor acquisition.
- It often requires years of training to arrive at the autonomous stage.
- This stage is where it’s at for elite athletes, where motor performance becomes
largely automatic, where cognitive processing demands are minimal, and athletes
are capable of attending to and processing other information.
- It is the stage where they can now respond and not think (or think minimally),
where they can grip it and rip it, look and automatically react, and enter a state of
flow.
Both good outcomes and bad outcomes are associated with the autonomous stage.

Activity # 2

1. Discuss the concept of motor skill from a task classification perspective and from a
performance proficiency perspective, and then explain how each perspective might be
used by a person who is coaching a teens basketball team.
2. Explain the concept of motor performance and motor learning and discuss two
movement characteristics a trainer might look for to determine if the non basketball
player executes the basketball dribbling skills correctly.
3. Discussed the problem-based approach to motor performance and learning

Individual Difference
Stand for the variation or deviations among individuals in regard to a single
characteristics or number characteristics, or those differences which in their totality
distinguish one individual from another.
1. Heredity
- An individual’s height, size, shape, and color of hair, shape of face, nose, hands,
legs, so to say the entire structure of the body is determine by his heretical
qualities.
2. Environment
- It brings individual differences in behavior activities attitude and style of life
characteristics personality etc.
- Environment does not refer only physical surroundings but also it refers the
different types of people society, their culture, customs, traditions, social heritage,
ideas, and ideals. Organization, work group, job, personal life
3. Sex
- Men is strong in mental power on the other hand women on the average show
small superiority over men in memory, language and aesthetic sense.
- Due to sex variation one individual differs from others. Women excel the men in
shouldering social responsibilities and have a better control over their emotions.
4. Age
- Learning ability and adjustment capacity naturally grow with age. When one
grows in age can acquire better control over our emotions and better social
responsibilities.
5. Education
- One of the major factor which brings a change in our attitude, behavior,
appreciation, and personality. It is seen that uneducated persons are guided by
their instinct and emotion where us the educated persons are guided by their
reasoning power.
6. Self
- This difference is due to the different genes inherited by the individuals as well as
differences environment.
7. Culture
- There has been a tendency in psychology to ignore the experiences of people from
different cultures.
8. Abnormality
- Is a highly controversial issue. The judgment that somebody is abnormal is
relative and is based on factors such as culture, class, religion, sexuality and so on.

Classification of Individual Difference

A more comprehensive classification is given by Gates:
1. Physical Traits
- Height, weight, built, appearance, facial expression, health.
2. Mental Traits
- Intelligence, as a measure of general endowment, and more specific forms of
mental activity as in memorizing, perceiving, reasoning, imagining.
3. Special Capacities
- Musical, artistic, mechanical, loco-motor, and social aptitudes.
4. Acquired Interest
- Knowledge and technical skills
5. Temperament
- Emotional tendencies and behavior like nervous stability
6. Volition
- Characteristics relating to voluntary control of all forms of actions, e.g., strength
of will, tenacity, lethargy, etc.
7. Character
- Reaction tendencies towards situations involving, moral, ethical and religious
codes and other socially approved standards of conduct.

Combination of Traits within the Individual:

- A human being is made of an exceedingly large number of different traits, each
present in some degree individual differences in combination of traits- Actual
achievement in any line depends on combination of traits. And there are an
infinite number of total combinations, patterns and each unique.

Theories of Traits of Organization

- There are theories to explain the way in which traits tend to be combined.
Theory of Compensation
- Is the strength in any one trait tends to be compensated for by weakness in others
vice versa.
Theory of Correlation
- Is the result of many studies of the inter-relations of traits have not been in
harmony with this view of compensation.

Areas of Individual Differences

1. Different Attitude
- Difference in attitude is psyche related to some specific area. Few learners have
positive attitude towards a specific topic, subject, and profession than other.
2. Different in Interest
- Interest means you observe some students like a particular, subject, teacher, hobby
or profession than other.
- Refers as a motivating force that impels us to attend to a person, a thing, or an
activity.
3. Different in Psychomotor Skills
- Is related to some skill acquisition.
4. Difference in Values
- Values be given importance by every learner. Some learners value materialist life
style other moral or religious life style etc.
5. Difference Study Habits
- Some students markedly differ from other students in study habits. Some students
are studious and study all the subjects with interest but other may not. Some study
in isolation and some in group.
6. Difference in Self Concept
- The totality of attitudes, judgment, and values of an individual relating to his
behavior, abilities, and qualities.

Educational Implications of the Psychology of Individual Differences

The teacher should keep in view the individual difference of his student while
engaging them in drill or practice work in the class-room or assigning home-task.
In case where ability grouping is not possible and more specifically under the
prevalent system of class teaching, special coaching and guidance program for both the dull
and the gifted children are most helpful.

Instructional Strategies for Individual Differences

In general, there are three different approaches for developing instructional strategies
with individual differences among students.
First, develop events of instruction that take them into account as part of the
instructional process.
The second approach is to provide some sort of grouping, either between classes or
within the classroom itself, in order to reduce or accommodate for the variability with respect
to student background, achievement, ability or some other characteristic. Levelling or
tracking, classroom, grouping, cooperative learning, and individualized instruction are
examples of this approach.
Third, modify the conditions within which instruction is taking place. This is the
approach used in mastery learning.
One strategy for dealing with individual differences is to develop or modify the
events of instruction so that they specifically address individual differences.
1. Personality.
2. Psychological characteristics.
3. Stable over time and across situations.
4. A set of characteristics.
5. Makes the person unique and different from others.

Abilities and Skills

- Ability, or aptitude, is a stable natural talent for doing something mental or
physical.
- A skill is an acquired talent that a person develops related to a specific task.

Values and Values System

- Values are long-lasting beliefs about what is worthwhile and desirable

Factors that affect values include:

1. Culture
2. Personality
3. Gender
4. Ethnicity
5. Generational differences
6. Components of Emotional Intelligence
7. Self-awareness
8. Managing emotions
9. Self-motivation
10. Empathy for others
11. Interpersonal skills

Personality Theories
1. Trait Theory
- Understand individuals by breaking down behavior patterns into observable traits.
2. Psychodynamic Theory
- Emphasizes the unconscious determinants of behavior.
3. Humanistic Theory
- Emphasizes individual growth and improvement.
4. Integrative Approach
- Describes personality as a composite of an individual’s psychological processes.

Ability and Capabilities

Ability
- Implies possibility, it relates to a skill or a natural talent. Ability means that one
has the necessary skill or natural talents, to say, play the piano or to run. Ability is
the generic, non-quantifiable quality of being able to do something. It is a talent, a
natural skill, which can’t be measured.
- Ability is the make-up of an athlete that we inherit from our parents.
- Abilities underpin and contribute to skills.
- Abilities can be essentially perceptual, essentially motor or a combination of both.
- Most abilities to do with action are a combination and are referred to as
psychomotor/perceptual motor abilities.
- SKILL = ABILITY + TECHNIQUE

Capability
- A capability is something a person or a thing is able to do.
- Refers to a maximum ability, one’s limits of capacity for doing or accomplishing
something. Capability can have a positive or negative implication, such as one
might be capable of doing something already, but isn’t doing it because one is not
acting or that one may have the potential to do something, if he gains, develops or
refines his skill or ability.
- The ability to perform or achieve certain actions or outcomes.
- As it applies to human capital, capability represents the intersection of capacity
and ability.

The Differences between Capability and Ability

The difference in meaning between the words ability and capability is pretty thin
Capability is usually defined as the feature of being capable of something.  Ability is a word
that pertains to being able. This means that when one is considered to have the ability then he
is able to do or has the means to do something.
Inside the word capability is the word ability. Note the fine distinction between them.
If you have an ability, it means you know how to do something. If you have a capability, it
means you have the power to do something.

Motor Ability
- Motor abilities are innate inherited traits that determine an individual’s balance,
coordination, ability and reaction time.
- An ability that is specifically related to the performance of a motor skill.
- Are inherited, relatively stable traits of athletes that are prerequisites for performing
various sport skills.
- These abilities are predictors of sport performance in the same way that intelligence is
a predictor of academic performance.

Motor Abilities establish potentials for specific motor skills. Each motor skill requires
specific motor abilities to perform successfully. If two people have the same amount of
practice, level and amount of instruction and motivation to perform the skill then motor
abilities will influence the level of performance and each person can/will achieve it.