Open/Closed Continuum.
Barbara Knapp recognised two basic classifications of skill, these are either open skills or closed skills.
Open skills are those in which the environment is unpredictable and affects the skill. The form of action has to be varied according to what is happening around the performer. This means that the skill will require adapting each time it is performed. Many conditions can affect this such as, the weather, the pitch conditions, the speed on a ball, the opponent, the positioning, etc.
Closed skills are skills which are not affected by the environment. They are prelearned patterns of movement that can be followed with little reference to what is going on around them. They are performed the same every time.
Both open and closed skills need to be practised differently, in which case it is important that performers, teachers and coaches recognise where on the continuum a skill lies.
Open and closed skills can be used to describe individual, co-active and interactive skills, in a process of grouping similar skills together and giving them a general label.
In preparing a performer for competition, coaches need to consider the nature of the interactions between competitors and the extent to which the opposition can affect the player’s performance. To do this an interaction continuum is used:
Self-paced/Externally paced Skills.
The Pacing continuum is concerned with the extent to which the performer has control over the timing of the action. Actions are either, ‘self paced’ of ‘externally paced’. This is, who controls the timing of the skill, it may be the performer or an outside factor, such as a referee.
Self-paced skills are those that are instigated by the performer. They can take as much time or as little time as they wish. An example of this would be a badminton serve, the performer is not told to take the serve at a particular time. It tends to be a closed skill because the performer is in control of most factors.
Externally paced skills are those in which the timing of the performance is not controlled by the performer, but by an outside factor. This may be the weather, for example in sailing, or an official or it could be another performer, such as a service return in badminton. It tends to be an open skill because it is dependent on the surrounding environment.
A pacing continuum is shown below which links open and closed individual, co-active and interactive skills to self paced and externally paced skills.
Discrete, Serial and Continuous Skills.
This is another method of skill classification, it relies on an obvious beginning or end to a skill. The skill may be a separate aspect of a sport which can be practised alone, or it could be an element of a skill which cannot be identified as having an obvious beginning or end.
Discrete skills have a clear beginning and end, which means that it can be repeated and practised on its own to be improved. The skill is a separate element, for example, a free throw in a game of basketball.
Serial skills are those which are made up of a number of discrete or continuous skills. Both a Stimulus and a response are put together to produce an integrated movement. They can make up a routine or a sequence, such as, a gymnastics floor routine.
Continuous skills are those which have no obvious beginning or end. This means that the end of one cycle of the skill becomes the beginning of the next. A good example of this is running, a runner may continue for as long as they want to.
A Continuity continuum is drawn below; it shows examples of open and closed individual, co-active and interactive activities at the three different extremes.
Body Involvement Skills.
Body involvement skills are made up of gross and fine skills.
Gross skills involve large muscle groups and movement of the whole body; they have a margin of error in terms of accuracy. These are skills such as, walking, running, etc.
Fine skills are those which involve small movements of specific body parts. In most cases, these need much control and a high level of accuracy. These are skills such as writing, darts or playing the piano.
Coaches and players must consider the movements in between the two extremes, they must be analysed and practiced in order to improve.
The continuum below shows the two extremes of gross and fine skills, with examples from each of an open and closed individual activity, a co-active sport and an interactive sport.
In conclusion, from the continuums above, I realize that continuums are very important in classifying skills correctly. A skill can be categorized by placing it along a continuum, this will help to break them down which again makes skills easier to learn or teach as it allows people to analysis each task. Once a skill is learnt it can then be transferred from one sport to another.
A disadvantage to the continuums is that you cannot place a skill defiantly in one category or the other, which means that there may be some uncertainty among the classification of skill. This leads to people having different ideas about what skill is.
Bibliography.
- R.J Davis, C.R Bull, J.V Roscoe, D.A Roscoe - Physical Education and the study of sport.
- Edexcel-Advanced PE for Edexcel.
- GCSE OCR Revision- (Skill definition)