Three Stages Of Motor Learning

Cognitive Stage

Discuss about three stages of motor learning and applying motor learning stages in coaching athletes.

One of the primary aspects, which need to be analyzed, is that the athletes should respond and does not concentrate much on thinking on various aspects. An effective coach would target in developing the gripping and ripping power of the athletes. Thus, motor learning especially at the early stages plays a crucial role in the lives of the athletes by providing an idea of the movement. Furthermore, it helps in understanding the basic pattern of coordination. For achieving all these objectives, the learner needs to use verbal and cognitive protocols so that the accustomed problems are successfully addressed (Carson, Collins and Richards 2014).

From the perspective of Coach, it can be stated that this simple paradigm is extremely helpful for guiding, understanding and thereby accelerating the motor learning protocol. Thus, a complete explanation of all these stages needs to be addressed in order to promote effective coaching impact on the athletes (Jensen et al. 2015).

The motor skill acquisition factor is based on three distinct stages, i.e. Cognitive Stage, Associative Stage and the Autonomous Stage.

Cognitive Stage

For a new athlete, the issue related to the cognitive stage remains in understanding the entire scenario. It is often very difficult for an individual to lean a basic skill without having any knowledge regarding the subject on a before note. Taking an example of butterfly stroke, which is common in swimming practices, a new learner need to learn about the facts regarding the unnatural stroke, which is associated to the movement of arms and the kicks (Lee and Schmidt 2014). A learner would be subjected to numerous challenges if he/she is subjected to butterfly stroke without having a glimpse of the event or inheriting associated knowledge regarding the act. Thus, motor learning initiates with the cognitive stage along with the processing of the basic information regarding the act.

Cognitive stage can be considered as the greatest parameter for the athlete as this stage involves the protocol of information processing. This is also known as the verbal motor stage. The stage is found to be involving the factor of conveyance (i.e. the verbal perspective) and acquisition (i.e. cognition perspective) related to the new information. In this stage, the person trying to process the information delivers an attempt to the cognitive in order to understand the basic requirements and the parameters related to the motor movement.

Associative Stage

In the theory of the new golf learners, cognitive stage plays a very crucial role which need to be analyzed by the coach effective and systematically. The novice learners need to encounter a golf lesson in the beginning of the course. Having never seen a golfer playing the game in a defined style would not trigger the excitement and the eager regarding the game. The coach need to understand that every learner is a mini tabula rasa who is always ready to learn. They need to watch the preceding classes of the golfers and thereby immediately get accustomed to the visual information regarding the same. The next factor, which needs to be analyzed by the golfer, includes the explanation of golf swings before beginning the game (Gredin and Williams 2015). This exercise is mainly based on the verbal interaction regarding the sport with the coach and the learners. Thus, it can be stated that the learners do not simply grow up to be an effective golfer, but should rely on the cognitive approach at the very primitive stage.

The cognitive stage is mainly characterized with large gains in terms of inconsistent performance and effective performances. In this stage, the factors of guidance, video analysis, slow motion drills, basic instructions, augmented feedback and the relating coaching techniques are systematically analyzed. According to the Closed Loop theory, “it is important that the learner is provided with the necessary information, guidance, and time to establish sound fundamentals of movement”. Similarly, in Schema Theory, it states that, “Sometimes making errors and taking a constructivist approach to coaching and learning can be useful”.

Associative Stage

The associative stage of motor learning mainly encompasses the parameters including much less verbal information, conscious performance, disjointed and awkward movement, adjusting making and the long period of time for completion of the task. At thus stage, the athlete mainly tend in developing the movement for adjusting along with stringing together in order to develop minute movement skills. This stage is also marked as the intermediate motor stage as it is found to be entitled to solving problems, which arises in the associated stage (regarding the performance of the skill). Based on the cognitive perspective, it can be clearly analyzed that an athlete attempts in translating the declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge. In other words, it can be stated that the athlete is transformed from “what to do” to “how to do” (Duivenvoorden, Kok and van Hilvoorde 2014).

Autonomous Stage

A new athlete, who is recently transferred from one program to another need to analyze carefully the reason for transfer. The level of performance needs to be analyzed and thereby the factors of any declination should be thoroughly monitored by the coach. If it is realized that the lack of progress is due to the lack of fundamentals, then the coach need to implement remedial courses of work. The factor of motor acquisition, which is eventually considered as the best approach needs to be explained thoroughly in order to improvise the performance that the person need to change. The changes, which need to be implemented, depend on the factors of old habits and the innovative fundamentals, which should be revised (depending on three motor stages, i.e. the cognitive, the associative and the autonomous) stages (Vine et al. 2013). The relearning protocol aims in acquisition of innovative information (i.e. the cognitive stage) and then following the frustrations related to the associative stage.

Getting the athletes for relearning is often considered as a challenging factor for the coaches. Some of the athletes, especially the successful athletes often to comment, “Hey, I was high school state champion doing it this way! Why should I change? Besides, the new movement feels awkward”. On such situation, it is encounters that an effective coach replies that, “Well, you could have won by even more had you done it the new way!” Thus, it is very clear from such common statements in the sports field that the athletes feel quite awkward and uncomfortable while trying something new (Hayman et al. 2013). Moreover, they are also found to very reluctant in continuing with the effective change bought by the coach into their practice system, which often results in negative consequences. The verbal information provided in the three stages of the motor learning protocol provides information regarding the new technologies for activating or establishing a learning schema. Moreover, it helps in providing the rationale and the perspective for persevering with the change.

Autonomous Stage

According to the concept of Fitts’ and Posner Paradigm, the Autonomous Stage is considered as the final motor acquisition stage, which needs to be handled very sincerely. It is often found to be accustomed to years of training sessions, which tend to arrive effectively in this stage. This stage is basically reserved for the elite athletes which is often found intermingled with the motor performance, It can be stated that the motor performance of the athletes becomes tentatively automatic and the cognitive processing demands are found to be very minimal. The athletes are seen to be capable of attending or processing other relevant information regarding the sport. This includes the position of defensive players, innovative strategies for the game or the other forms (or style) of movement which need to be implemented. This is found to be quite common in various sports, such as ice staking, synchronized swimming and the forms of dancing (Kümmel, Kramer and Gruber 2014). It is the most effective stage where the athlete need to respond and thereby think minimally regarding the gripping factors and looking automatically to react (or enter a state of flow).

Applying Motor Learning in Coaching Athletes

It can be assumed that both these factors of bad outcomes and good outcomes are effectively associated to the autonomous stages. A significant performance would require much less attention along with cognitive demand regarding the engagement of the performance in the secondary tasks. It is often noted that there are several ineffective outcomes regarding the automatic performance of an athlete, which reinforces them to maintain incorrect movements. This is because the athletes are accustomed to certain level of comfort along with reinforcement, which is mainly associated to automatic performances (Barnett et al. 2015). This is evenly followed even when the approaches adopted by the individual is imperfect or uncontrollable. Thus, as the motor movement can be performed systematically and scientifically, it does not means that the movement is correct and acceptable. An effective coach would not permit the influence of such motor activity. As the athletes stop thinking about the innovative movement during the associative and the cognitive stages, then it is quite common that the person would also respond automatically by reverting onto the incorrect and old movement in the performance repertoire.

The three stages of the motor learning session are summarized below:

Table 1: Summary of Fitts’ and Posner’s Three Stages of Motor Learning

Stages	Process	Characteristics	Other Name
Cognitive Motor Learning	Gathering the information	Associated to large gains and inconsistent performance of the athletes	Verbal Motor Stage
Associative Motor Learning	Putting the actions all together	Small gains are achieved along with the occurrence of disjointed performance and conscious efforts	Motor Stage
Autonomous Motor Learning	Placing much time and practice	The performance seems to be unconscious, smooth and automatic	Automatic Stage

The athletes should be provided with detailed information in the early stages of their learning. They should be supplied with correct information, so that they can perform in a correct way. A clear and concise instruction is required in order to deliver the message to the athletes. If in case the athletes will not understand what is taught to them, then they will not perform in a correct way, then in this case the instructor is solely responsible for that action. Hence, a clear communication is required so that they can grasp the concepts easily. The instructor can understand the physics behind the teaching but he/ she should make the athletes understand these concepts in nonprofessional terms. The explanation of the three stages of motor learning and relearning process is necessary for the athletes. Generally, it is more difficult to relearn something than learning it for the first time. This complexity can lead to annoyance and this behavior can act like a hurdle in the learning process as well as the accomplishment of goal. The instructor should note about the performance of the athletes in all the stages. Proper evaluation will help to analyze the stage/stages in which relearning is required. The instructor needs to gain the trusts of the athletes and assure them that their performance will be enhanced in all the stages leading to a progression in their overall learning process. It is generally observed that some instructors are unsuccessful in fixing the movements. They know how to teach something correctly in the beginning, but not know how to fix a bad habit (Strachan, MacDonald and Côté 2016). Therefore, the understanding of cognitive theory and the approach of cognitive teaching will help them effectively.

The instructors also need to be patient with the athletes during the associative stage.  The associative stage is involved with the awkward and disjointed movements. Initially, the things do not appear easy because it is a learning process and it need time to understand the things (Kantak and Winstein 2012). If the instructor expects an immediate and smooth performance, then this expectation is useless and leads to disappointment in most of the cases. In this case, there is no need to fear and panic because this act can make the athletes more anxious and will interfere in their learning process. For example, some athletes fear the consequences of losing and the outcome of the result. Due to this, they always remain in a state of dilemmas (Anderson and Campbell 2015). Hence, the instructor needs to remain calm and patient. They need to facilitate learning with more confidence and should boost the morale of the athletes at every stage of the learning.

The primary goal of the instructor should revolve around the performance of the athletes. The athletes should perform automatically. Though, it is already known that automaticity leads to the creation of an empty space in the working memory which results in the emergence of negative and unproductive thoughts. Therefore, the instructors should keep the working memory of the athletes with the right stuff (Riveiro et al. 2015). They should learn to monitor their thoughts and remove negativity from their minds. They should engage themselves in positive self-talk and should get motivated at every stage of the learning process in an effective manner.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that a coaching learning protocol mainly helps in developing the legitimate area of the enquiry. It is analyzed to be the base of information, which is developed along the serendipitous lines. An effective coach would sincerely target in influencing the personal along with the methodological interest of the scholars. They would not attempt in developing the conceptually oriented along with the consensual research agenda. Often it can be stated that there is a dearth of the research study, which tend to evaluate the content, structure and the provision related to coach learning. The factor relating the implication of such factor on the coaching practitioner needs to be analyzed thoroughly. In respect to this, an effective coach need to be analyze the rigorous examination regarding the content, assessment, delivery along with the impact on the professional’s practice and knowledge.

Based on the above literature study, the following recommendations can be addressed:

• There are various different ways of understanding and thereby conceptualizing learning abilities
• Often there are relative absence associated to the empirically informed researches which need to be addressed in the coach learning
• The factor of theoretical eclecticism is highly preferable. However the parameter of coach learning should be designed in an explicit manner in order to relate to the assumptions and thereby co relate to an understanding regarding the learning and alignment of the objectives in the program
• The literature provides a little appreciation regarding learning and teaching preferences along with the needs of the coaches across various coaching domains and within the developmental spectrum
• Mentoring, Reflection and the parameter of Situated Learning are considered an important factor of structure learning. However, these parameters require effort and time in order to develop and thereby get embedded to the coaching learning techniques. An effective golf coach need to link all these changes effectively in the coaching practice in order to boost the magnitude of the training sessions
• Mentoring by the coach plays a crucial role in addressing the formal and informal learning sessions. It can be experiences as both negative and positive factors for the research evidences in order to identify its impact on the practice. The role of a golf coach is to influence content knowledge more effectively on the entire process and thereby monitor the entire scenario sincerely.

References

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