Skills and Techniques Lesson Eight

In addition to the principles of effective practice, feedback, motivation and concentration are important in the development of any skill/technique. We will be focussing on Feedback and Motivation as these are the most important to us. If you had to answer a question on how one or two of the above influenced your performance you would more likely discuss Feedback and Motivation.

Feedback There are two main categories of feedback: Feedback is information you collect about your performance. There are different types of feedback. The types you collect depend on the task you are completing and what you wish to know about your performance. There are two main categories of feedback: Internal (Intrinsic) Feedback. External (Extrinsic) Feedback. Feedback Internal (Intrinsic) External (Extrinsic) Feedback is essential for performance improvement. Enables you to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Helps plan improvements to your performance. Provides reinforcement about the successful parts of your performance. Positive feedback increases your motivation and encourages you to work towards further improving your performance.

Internal (Intrinsic) External (Extrinsic) Internal feedback concerns movement awareness, i.e. how it feels to you (Kinaesthetic awareness). You can feel how you execute shots, do you feel: Side on. Balanced. Weight on back foot. Transferring weight forward. During an overhead clear you would receive internal feedback about the action through the positioning, control, balance, co-ordination and timing you felt when completing the overhead clear. External feedback concerns information gathered from another source. It could be gathered from: Observation Schedules Video Recording Digital Images Information from teacher Knowledge of results. You could receive external feedback on the result of an overhead clear from a scatter diagram, video recording of you performing overhead clear, feedback from teacher, knowledge of whether you won a point.

Using feedback to help you The manner in which you use/collect feedback should relate effectively to the activity and be specific to what you need to know. In badminton you could use internal feedback towards the end of the associative and during autonomous stage of skill learning to help you grove the overhead clear action to muscle memory. When completing the overhead clear you should be aware of your stance – do you feel like you are standing side on, is your weight transferred to your back foot, does your weight transfer forward at moment of impact with shuttle. By being aware of these factors, you will develop a feeling and awareness of when you have performed the overhead clear effectively.

Using feedback to help you For the same action you could use various forms of external feedback to help you grove the overhead clear action to muscle memory. You could use a video recording to see yourself perform the overhead clear. You could also use the video to slow your performance down and more accurately complete an observation schedule of your overhead clear. A variety of observation schedules could be used to gather a variety of information. Movement Analysis to compare yourself with a model performer at Preparation, Action, Recovery stages. Scatter diagram to record where you played your overhead clears to.

Ensuring Feedback is effective… For feedback to be effective it needs to be positive. Positive feedback focuses on what you did well and suggests how further improvements could be made. Positive feedback links to motivation. For example, if you have just finished your game and you receive positive feedback about the effectiveness of your overhead clear this is more likely to motivate you to make further improvements. Giving negative feedback which tends to concentrate on what you are doing wrong is not useful, and should not be given. Negative feedback fails to explain how you can improve your performance and is dispiriting and de-motivating. To ensure that the positive feedback you receive is effective, it needs to be accurate, relevant to your performance and given as soon as possible after performance.

Motivation Motivation Internal (Intrinsic) External (Extrinsic) Motivation is your level of desire to succeed. You need to be motivated in order to improve your level of performance. (You need to want to do it. In sport you will have heard the expression he/she/they wanted it more than their opponent) Your aim is to optimise your motivation for the practice session you are undertaking. The most common distinction is whether your motivation is Internal (intrinsic) or External (extrinsic) Motivation Internal (Intrinsic) External (Extrinsic)

Motivation Having only one form of motivation is rare in sport. Commonly both internal and external motivation are involved. For example in Physical Education……. Internal motivation comes through a genuine desire to improve your performance. (You will have picked PE because you enjoy it, you participate in a particular activity because you enjoy it). The only reason you want to improve your overhead clear is to make you a better badminton player. External motivation comes through wishing to achieve a better practical grade or using your overall qualification to gain entry to college or university. You wish to improve your overhead clear to get a better badminton grade which will help you achieve a better overall course award.

External Motivation – Goal Setting You can use goal setting to keep you motivated and ensure that you perform at your highest level Setting goals is a good way of keeping you motivated. Why… Because when your internal motivation is low (can’t be bothered/lazy) you will have little desire to improve. However if you set yourself a goal your external motivation will more than likely increase motivating you to work harder. Goal setting involves you setting challenging yet achievable targets which are specific to your level of performance. For example… In Golf you may set a target of trying to only two putt on any green. Once this has been achieved you could increase the difficulty by having to one putt on four greens and two putt on the remaining holes.