To gain a better understanding between the differences of interactive, coactive and individual skills I am going to compare 6 different skills in sport, 2 from each category and place them along 4 continuums of varying types of skill.
OPEN 5 6 4 3 1 2 CLOSED
Open skills are those affected by the environment whereas closed skills are habitual and self-paced movements; where the environment plays no role.
GROSS 3 2 1 5 6 4 FINE
Gross skills are those involving large muscle movements and fine skills are those involving more intricate movements using small muscle groups.
EXTERNAL PACE INTERNAL PACE
5 6 3 4 1 2
Externally paced skills are those where the control over the rate of the skill is not held by the performer, it often involves the reaction of the performer. Internal paced skills are those where the performer has control over the rate in which the skill is carried out under control. It involves pro-action by the performer.
CONTINUOUS DISCRETE
4 5 3 1 6 2
SERIAL
Continuous skills are those where there is no obvious beginning or end. Discrete skills are those where is a clear beginning and end. Also it’s a single specific skill. Serial skills are those made up of several discrete elements put together to make an integrated movement.
Now I have made examples of different skill types, I can analyse what trends are shown by different sports and compare with the three skill types. It also helps that I know from personal experience what is involved in each skill and type of sport.
It seems individual skills are predominantly ‘self paced’ and ‘closed’. This makes sense as by definition individual skills are those in which no direct opposition is involved with the performer making it hard for a third party to affect the skill. The only exception is when the environment affects the skill, for example in a high jump competition, there maybe a huge crowd or a family member watching, which may affect the performer psychologically. It is similar with playing a sport involving the weather for example, kicking a penalty in rugby would be very hard to control if there is a powerful headwind.
It seems that also lots of individual skills are discrete with a clear beginning and end and the skill can be repeated. However, there are anomalies too. For example, canoeing is an individual sport but the skill is continuous and can be stopped whenever the performer wishes. I think there are anomalies because the majority of individual skills are those with an objective for example, in the high jump you’re objective is to get over the bar, that’s all, there are no other components involved. Whereas in other individual sports, the performer does his bit and after that it’s down to judging which is the subjective view of the judges e.g. diving. There are less of these sports than ones with objectives so I think its ok to say in general, individual sports are discrete.
Similarly to individual skills, the immediately obvious link between coactive skills is they are self paced and closed too. But you could argue that, for example, in the 100m sprint, you are directly involved with other competitors because if you saw them going in ahead of you this would give you renewed determination and strength, not to lose. This cross references back to the definition of a coactive skill which is “Coactive skills are those performed at the same time as others but without direct confrontation” so you would expect the findings to be similar between the two skill types.
From experience, I know that other performers can distract the competitor verbally which might affect the performer psychologically but this is the maximum that they can do.
The two coactive skills I have looked at are both discrete but I know from personal experience there are continuous coactive skills e.g. swimming. I think my sample can be criticised for being too small. I think this area of skill is very diverse and the type of skill involve be it ‘continuous’ or ‘discrete’ differs from sport to sport.
Similarly I think it is extremely difficult to label coactive skills as either fine or gross particularly because at times the same skill can be performed differently depending on the performer or depending on what the performer wants to do with it. So if a swimmer was to have short distance race, the muscle movements would be much larger (gross). Whereas if a swimmer was to do a longer distance swim, the muscle movements would be finer as he/she would be pacing herself to save energy for later in the race. So I think it is hard to define co-active sports as either gross or fine as I think they are in the middle. Having said that, my data on co-active sports shows a contradiction. I think this is due to the sample being too small.
When considering interactive skills, it is much easier to identify patterns and similarities. Almost, all interactive skills are very open, because they are directly affected by the environment around the performer. The performer must often adapt due to changes in their environment. A good example is the Football header, if a defender was about to go up for a header and the defender notices an attacking opponent coming up for a header too. The defender will adapt to this change in his environment and try to out-jump the attacking opponent.
I think it is difficult to classify the pacing of an interactive skill, because depending on the fair outcome you cannot say the skill is either internally or externally paced. The hockey gridlock for example, if two performers were to go into a tackle, the force you would be putting in would be internal but the force working against you would be external. So if you won the tackle, you would say that the tackle was more internally paced than externally.
When trying to evaluate whether interactive skills are discrete or continuous. I feel some aspects of interactive sports are discrete, for example, the penalty kick in Rugby. But I also feel that some aspects of interactive sports are continuous, for example, running in Rugby. So I think it is fair to say that interactive sports cannot be generalised into these two categories. This is most likely due to the diversity within this type of skill.
To conclude, to classify skills, we group skills together so we can tell them apart by placing these skills on a continuum. Within the classification system there are four main continuums – muscle involvement, the affect of the environment, the pacing of the skill and the way in which the skill is carried out. By using this method we identify differences by looking at trends and patterns. Each continuum offers different information which is used by coaches and performers alike because it gives a thorough understanding of skills and relationships between them.
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Bibliography
Roscoe textbook
Physical Education Textbook (By David Kirk)