By Gibson Darden & Sandra Wilson
(July 25, 2023)
The below excerpt is from Chapter 5 Practice Analysis for Transfer in the new book: From Practice to Competition: A Coach’s Guide for Designing Training Sessions to Improve the Transfer of Learning. We purposefully placed this middle chapter in the heart of the book. The chapter explores research supported or evidence-based ways for coaches to analyze their practice sessions to increase positive transfer to the game. The excerpt pulls from the analysis called Environment-based Transfer. Other recommended methods to analyze practice include Specificity or similarity-based transfer, and Principles or general-based transfer. For each analysis, we include a tool for coaches to “test” their practice settings. We walk the reader through sample practice analyses and interpret how much a practice condition will facilitate transfer to the game or competition. As with all the book chapters, we include a variety of real-life examples to highlight our recommendations and strategies (the excerpt highlighted practicing the basketball dribble and volleyball serve).
Excerpt from Chapter 5
A key element of the ecological dynamics theory (transfer theory 4 in chapter 2) is the similarity of the perception-action coupling. Is the practice environment similar enough to the game so that like movement solutions emerge in practice? Any practice that separates or de-couples the athlete’s game –like perception of the environment from the athlete’s movement solution will not be specific enough to optimize transfer. The guiding principle for specificity from this perspective is that what learners are seeing, hearing, and feeling in the practice environment should mimic the game environment. This perspective argues that specificity comes down to one essential element: the highly specific relationship between the information in the environment and the athlete’s movement. This relationship should be practiced; this is what transfers. The emphasis shifts from practicing the action (movement) to practicing the interaction between the environment and the movement. (p. 104)
The perception-action coupling concept challenges some of the more traditional coaching methods. One recommendation is to avoid practice drills or activities that employ overly artificial practice environments. For example, dribbling around cones in soccer or basketball provides “fake” information that is not available in the game. Ball handling is driven by information from the environment. In a game, you use information from the defender’s postures and movements relative to other things around you (e.g., boundaries) to guide your action (e.g., what, how, and when to dribble or pick up). A cone is an abstract environmental cue that is irrelevant; no decision-making or problem-solving is required of the athlete. When coaches are frustrated that their basketball players don’t look up to scan the court while dribbling in a game, recall their practice drills where they dribbled around cones. And then recall who placed those cones on the ground in the first place! Athletes need real-life environmental cues in practice if they are going to develop skills for transfer to the game. (p. 105)
A second recommendation is to avoid oversimplifying the practice environment. While simplifying skill practice can be effective for learning (e.g., part-practice of a skill), care should be taken not to take it too far out of its environmental context. Doing so runs the risk of de-coupling the game like perception-action (p.105). An example of this might be in the volleyball serve. The initiation of the timing and coordination between the hip and serving arm in striking the volleyball (action) becomes connected (coupled) to the peak height of the ball toss (perception of the environment). With practice, athletes develop and rely on strong couplings to perform. Importantly, the elements of perception and the elements of the action are inseparable. So, we should not practice them separately. In the volleyball serve example above, the player should limit the practice of the toss by itself (perception) because it’s connected to the movement (action)(p. 41).
About the book…
From Practice to Competition: A Coach’s Guide for Designing Training Sessions to Improve the Transfer of Learning is a one-of-a-kind resource that focuses solely on what concerns coaches the most about their practice conditions: Will it transfer to the game?
We take a comprehensive approach, starting with laying the foundation for transfer and understanding the science behind the transfer of learning (and practice). We then provide a variety of research-based strategies and techniques coaches can use to increase the transfer of their practice conditions. Whether through coaching instructions, practice design, practice repetitions, or the type of coach feedback, coaches are sure to find a variety of useful recommendations and methods that increase the transfer of their practice sessions to the game. Below is an excerpt from the book, followed by a brief author commentary.
