I am going to use a football player as an example of all of these skills working together. The cognitive skill would be working out whether to dribble or pass then how to dribble. The perceptive skill would be the player then working out the position of team mates and opposing players, context of the game – winning or losing, how much time you have and what is the final objective, i.e. scoring. The motor skill would be the physical action of dribbling, the speed, and route in which the player wishes to go.
An example of a skill in an individual sport could be a sprinter, exploding out from the starting blocks. The skill would be the sprint start or maybe even the foot flick.
Skills can be enhanced upon by practise; this major factor’s influence is supported by the common phrase ‘practice makes perfect’. In reality practice can only lead to improvement a very few of us are perfect. We will come back to how practises are structured in order to improve skills in more detail, in the last section.
Ability is defined as:
“Motor abilities are innate inherited traits that determine an individual’s coordination, balance, ability, and speed of reactions.”
(E. Fleishman) 2
Abilities are said to be enduring capacities that a person has within him or herself. A person is therefore born with these qualities. Abilities are innate or inherited traits, factors that help, for instance a person’s coordination, balance, agility, and speed of reactions.
The difference between a skill and ability is that a skill is a learned ability; a person trying to carry out a sporting activity will learn to use these underlying innate characteristics (abilities) in an organised way in order to carry out coordinated movement, a skill.
A skill can only occur once someone has learned and is confident in his or her own abilities, and has practised using it to perform the efficiency required of a skill.
An example of ability in a game situation would be a football player using their abilities of gross body coordination, stamina, dynamic strength and visual tracking, to follow are play the game.
Using the sprinter again, exploding from the blocks, the abilities concerned. Would be having good reactions and a lot of power
Ability is innate; it therefore cannot be improved upon in the same way as skill can, through practice. The only way to develop and enhance ability is to learn it. Testing for a skill is normally quite simple; a standardised test would work, i.e. to test the skill of dribbling in football you could set up a short course. You cannot test for ability in quite the same way, it has to be assessed over time, and a lot of evaluation must go into the observed characteristics to differentiate skill and skill from ability. If ability is not trained, the full potential of a learner can never be reached. To train ability you need motivation. This could come from feedback from coaches or a self-determined desire to be a high level competitor in your sport.
The duration of ability is infinite. By that I mean it lasts as long as you are alive. It is a part of you, your make up, you may get very old and ‘loose the ability’ but you never loose the ability, only the physical capability to capitalise on your abilities as you were in your prime.
The three terms skill, ability, and technique are key to one another; skill equals ability plus technique. In order to perform any skill in sport the correct technique is needed. In order to learn the technique fully we must have the necessary abilities. Ability allows the skill to be carried out. The technique is specific to suit each skill
A good technique is
Performer at the elite level must have been born with the natural abilities and then developed the specific techniques for the skills to enable them to perform at such a high standard. Even if you are motivated, have vast amount of natural ability, and good techniques for your skills, you still may never reach your full potential if you do not have the correct facilities and provision for your sport in your area, even if the correct training methods are used.
Practice is the rehearsal of an action. Practice improves skills. Using different methods of practices, different skills can be developed.
Using the pure-part method can help the development of skills that have many stages to them. The skill is broken down into its constituent elements and then each one is taught separately to the learner. The leaner then gets competent at each stage before the skill is put together and practiced as a whole. It allows any problem areas to be identified and worked on. It also avoids any worries or anxiety about performing the whole skills in one go straight away.
The whole-part method is similar to the pure-part method but the skill is introduced as a whole to the learner, before being broken down into it it’s separate parts, and then being put back together again. It has the same strengths as the pure-part method. However it also suffers from the weaknesses of the pure-part method in that because the skills are taught in stages, broken up, learners in the cognitive stage of skill development may find it hard to create a mental image of the overall skill and this would result in the loss of confidence and overall picture of what they should do.
The progressive-part method is slightly dissimilar to the other methods. The skill is broken down into parts, part A is taught, then part B then both A and B together. This overcomes the problems in the previous methods in that it allows a clear mental image of the skill to be formed during the cognitive stage. As well as this it also allows flexibility in the approach, allowing the method to be developed appropriately for a particular skill.
Whichever method is used for training the benefits must outweigh the drawbacks. Many believe that although the part methods are helpful, teaching and learning the skill ultimately as a whole is better.
This implies that as the learner progresses, so must the particular method of training. More complex skill can be taught with a part method initially, but when a learner is competent and has a good ability for a sport they can be taught complex methods as a whole, ultimately improving them and their game still further.
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Bibliography
1.Wesson, K. & Wiggins, N. & Thompson, G. & Hartigan, S: Sport and PE (2nd ed.) London (2000)
2.Wesson, K. & Wiggins, N. & Thompson, G. & Hartigan, S: Sport and PE (2nd ed.) London (2000)
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Galligan, G. & Maskery, C. & Spence, J. & Howe, D. & Barry, T. & Ruston, A. & Crawford, D: Advanced PE for Edexel Surrey (2000)
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Roscoe, D. & Roscoe, J. & Honeybourne, J. & Davis, B. & Galligan, F: Physical Education And Sport Studies, Advanced Level Student Revision Guide Cheshire (1998)