What is a skill? Classifying skills on continua
A skill is a learned movement done efficiently, with a clear goal, and with consistent results. Ability is different: abilities (balance, coordination, reaction time) are mostly inborn and help you learn skills.
Skills rarely sit at one end, so we use continua (lines with two ends):
- Open – closed: affected by a changing environment (a pass in a match) or a stable one (a free throw).
- Gross – fine: large muscle groups (shot put) or small precise movements (darts).
- Discrete – serial – continuous: clear start and end (a catch), linked parts in order (triple jump), or no clear end (running, swimming).
- Self-paced – externally paced: you choose when to start (serve) or something else decides (receiving a serve).
- Simple – complex: few or many decisions.
- Low – high organisation: easily split into parts (swimming stroke) or hard to split (cartwheel).
Always justify the position: "a penalty is fairly closed because the ball and goal do not move, but the keeper adds some openness."
Information processing and memory
The simple model is a loop: input (information from senses: sight, hearing, touch, kinaesthesis) → decision making (brain chooses a plan using memory) → output (nerves send messages to muscles) → feedback (information about the result) → back to input.
Selective attention filters out unimportant information (crowd noise) and focuses on what matters (the ball).
Memory stores
- Short-term sensory store: holds everything for under a second; most is lost.
- Short-term memory: the "workspace"; about 7 ± 2 items for about 30 seconds.
- Long-term memory: stores well-practised motor programmes for a very long time.
Reaction time
Reaction time = time from stimulus to start of movement. Hick's law: reaction time rises as the number of choices rises (roughly with log of choices). Response time = reaction time + movement time. Anticipation and practice reduce it.
Stages of learning and theories of learning
Three stages
- Cognitive: understanding the skill; many errors; needs demonstrations and simple instructions.
- Associative: practising; movements smoother; fewer errors; starts to use feel.
- Autonomous: automatic; consistent; can focus on tactics. Practice must continue or skills drift back.
A learning curve shows performance rising (or errors falling) with practice; it often has a plateau where progress stops for a while (boredom, fatigue, limits of technique). Refining technique means using feedback to remove small errors.
Theories of learning
- Operant conditioning: actions that are rewarded are repeated (praise after a good shot).
- Social learning (observational): we copy role models we watch, if we pay attention, remember, can do it and are motivated.
- Cognitive (insight) learning: understanding the whole problem helps us solve it.
- Constructivism / zone of proximal development: a coach or more skilled peer helps the learner do what they cannot yet do alone.
Types and structure of practice
- Massed: no rest. For fit, experienced performers and simple discrete skills.
- Distributed: with rest or feedback breaks. Best for beginners and complex or tiring skills.
- Fixed: the same movement repeated (drills) – for closed skills.
- Variable: practice in changing situations – for open skills; builds schemas (general rules you can adapt).
- Whole: for fast, continuous, highly organised skills.
- Part: for complex, low-organisation serial skills.
- Progressive part (chaining): learn part 1, then 1+2, then 1+2+3.
- Whole–part–whole: try the whole, fix a weak part, put it back.
Mental practice (imagining the skill) also helps, especially for experts and before competition.
Guidance, feedback and transfer
Guidance
- Visual: demonstrations, video – best for beginners.
- Verbal: short instructions – good for experts and with a demo.
- Manual: the coach physically moves the learner.
- Mechanical: equipment helps (float, harness).
Feedback
- Intrinsic (from the feel of the movement) vs extrinsic (from coach, video, scoreboard).
- Knowledge of results (outcome) vs knowledge of performance (technique).
- Positive (what was good) vs negative (what to correct). Beginners need extrinsic, positive feedback and KR; experts use intrinsic feedback and KP.
Transfer of learning
Positive (one skill helps another), negative (one hinders another), zero (no effect), bilateral (from one limb to the other). Coaches build positive transfer by making practice like the real game.
Try it: classify and coach a skill
Choose a skill you do (a cricket bowl, a skipping rhythm, a yoga balance). Place it on three continua with reasons. Then practise it 10 times, counting errors; rest; repeat. Ask a friend to give one piece of knowledge of performance. Did your errors fall? Compare with the curve in step 3.
Key formulas and definitions
- Response time = reaction time + movement time
- Hick's law: reaction time ≈ a + b × log₂(number of choices)
- Information processing: input → decision → output → feedback
- Stages of learning: cognitive → associative → autonomous
- Memory: sensory store (< 1 s) → short-term memory (≈ 7 ± 2 items, ≈ 30 s) → long-term memory
Worked examples
1. Classify a tennis serve on the open–closed and self-paced–externally paced continua.
Closed (the server controls the ball; the environment is stable) and self-paced (the server decides when to start).
2. Reaction time = 0.25 s and movement time = 0.40 s. Find the response time.
0.25 + 0.40 = 0.65 s.
3. Using Hick's law with a = 180 ms and b = 150 ms, find the reaction time for 1, 2 and 4 choices.
1 choice: 180 + 150 × 0 = 180 ms. 2 choices: 180 + 150 × 1 = 330 ms. 4 choices: 180 + 150 × 2 = 480 ms.
4. Which practice type suits a beginner learning a front crawl in a cold pool?
Distributed (rest breaks because it is tiring and new) and whole–part–whole (try the stroke, practise the leg kick alone, then put it back).
5. A coach says, "Your arm was too low on that throw." Name the feedback types.
Extrinsic (from the coach), knowledge of performance (about technique), negative (says what to correct).
6. Explain one example of negative transfer.
A squash player starting tennis may use a loose wrist flick from squash, which spoils the firm-wrist tennis stroke.
Common mistakes
- Placing a skill at one end of a continuum without a reason. Always justify, and use 'more open than closed' wording.
- Mixing up ability (inborn) with skill (learned).
- Giving a beginner long verbal instructions instead of a clear demonstration.
- Confusing knowledge of results (outcome) with knowledge of performance (technique).