4.2-Types and methods of practice

What is part practice

• Splitting up the skill into subroutines to practice

Characteristics of part practice

• low organisation

• dangerous skills

• High complexity

• Serial tasks

• Long duration

Part practice-performer

• Beginner

• Limited attention span

• Early stages of learning

• Having problems with particular aspects of a skill

• Limited motivation

• Uses massed practice

Advantages of part practice

• Demand on learner reduced

• Good for simple skills

• Confidence may grow quickly

• Motivation evolves from progress

• Suitable for dangerous skills

• Fatigue reduced for demanding skills

• Teacher can focus on specific part

• Provides stages of success

Disadvantages of part practice

• Transfer to whole may be difficult

• Doesn’t work for highly organised skills

• Awareness of end product lost

• Loss of continuity

• Loss of kinaesthesis

• Can be demotivating

• Possibly time consuming

What is whole practice

• Taught without breaking down into subroutines

Characteristics of whole practice

• Low complexity

• High organisation

• Interrelated subroutines

• Discrete skills

• Ballistic

Performer - while practice

• Experienced

• High levels of attention

• Later stages of learning

• Highly motivated

• Uses distributed practice

Advantages of whole practice

• No time wasted in assembling parts

• Useful for discrete skills

• Retains feeling of flow

• Subroutines linked easily

• Transfer from practice to real situations are easy

Disadvantages of whole practice

• Ineffective with complex tasks

• Not appropriate for dangerous tasks

• Not good for performer of low ability

What is whole-part-whole practice

• Performer attempts whole skill then it’s split into subroutines to practice then put back together whole

Characteristics of whole - part - whole

• done to recognise strengths and weaknesses

• Can construct separate practices to correct errors

• Kinaesthesis appreciated

What is progressive part practice

• Skill broken into subroutines and one is learned before adding another link and the links are practised together until they can be practised together as a whole.

Characteristics of progressive part practice

• Helps performer remember the links between subroutines of skills

• One part is practiced a lot more than the others

Variable practice

• Conditioned are varied

• Encourage formation of schema

• Practice conditions should be as many realistic situations as possible

• For open skills

Distributed practice

• Training sessions include rest intervals

• Good for beginners and most skill learning

• Gives time to recover physically and mentally

• Good for potentially dangerous situations

massed practice

• Practice done with no rest intervals with sessions long in duration

• Encouraged habitual response

• Good for discrete skills

• Can lead to fatigue and boredom

fixed/overlearning

• A habitual learned skill

• Motor programmes formed automatically

• Attention can be directed peripherally to other elements of the game