Discuss the differences between skill, technique and ability and explain how 'practice makes perfect'

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Discuss the differences between skill, technique and ability and explain how ‘practice makes perfect’

In this piece of coursework I will incorporate skill, technique and ability to explain whether or not ‘practise makes perfect’. Skill is made up of a number of characteristics, such as; Coordinated, Controlled, Technique, Aesthetic, Learned, Consistent, Pre-determined, Efficient.

To perform at an elite status it is safe to say that the sportsperson will need to have exceptional skill, ability and technique to achieve their individual goals.

Ability can be defined as an inherited, innate and generally enduring traits that an individual possesses, allowing them to complete various tasks. Certain skills require specific abilities, which can be broadly categorised into psychomotor ability and gross motor ability. The former involves the processing of information and initiation of the movement, e.g. coordination and reaction time; the later involves actual movement e.g. flexibility, strength, stamina, balance and speed. (Complete A-Z PE). In contrast skill is said to be the learned ability to bring about pre-determined results with maximum certainty, often with the minimum outlay of time, energy or both. Performers who are said to be skilled often display similar characteristics including consistency, efficiency, coordination, fluency, whilst completing a recognised technique allowing them to successfully achieve an end goal. Highly skilled performers are said to have reached the antonomous stage of learning. (Complete A-Z PE). Technique can be interpreted to be the pattern of movements which is technically appropriate to perform a specific skill.

There are three different types of skill- cognitive, perceptual and motor. Cognitive can be explained as when you do arithmetic in your head (for example when you are computing the darts score) you are employing intellectual cognitive skills (Cognitive skill is the ability to solve problems by thinking.). Perceptual can also be explained as the process by which you sense things and interpret them.

In sport, you use this skill, for example to determine where and when to pass the ball or in judging the type of shot to play in gold. Perceptual is defined as-

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In sport, you use this skill, for example to determine where and when to pass the ball or in judging the type of shot to play in gold. Perceptual is defined as-

A capacity to use and interpret stimuli.
Good use of spatial information.
Good ability to judge and interpret.
Good judgement on how to react.

Motor skills are those in which voluntary movement is predominant and perception plays less important role, Motor is defined as-

Involves the muscular system and concern movement and muscular control.
Smoothly executing physical movements.
Ability to demonstrate technically good movements.

When a person has skill it is always different to that of a person who has ability. Ability is stable, enduring and mainly genetically determined characteristics or traits which underlie skilled performances, for example an international sprinter will be born with a high percentage of fast twitch muscle. This cannot be practised because it is inherited and

cannot usually be altered. Skill is when an individual practises an event, for example basketball players can improve how they shoot the ball to the hoop and can increase the average of scoring, this is skill as it is learning and repeating the motor skills to better the action. Technique is yet again different to both ability and skill, technique can be learnt and changed so it is not inherited, a elite long jumper is not born with technique but can practise and learn the specific movements on how to approach the board and also the specific movements on how to take off from the board and what to do in the air.

A key role in practise is whether it is variable or fixed (which directly links to massed, distributed practises and whole and whole/part approach).

Variable practise- training which allows an open skill to be practiced in a variety of situations to allow a strong schema to be established. For example this sort of practise could be used for football training where the player practises their dribbling around cones and then dribbling differently.

Fixed practice- a specific movement pattern is practised repeatedly. Often known as ‘drills’. A good example of this is basketball drills, where the individual just practises their shooting over and over again.

Massed- the skill is practised until learned without taking any breaks, a good example of this technique is long distance training which usually consists of the athlete running a distance (maybe 800metres or 400metres depending on their event but always a lower distance from the event they compete in) then walking back to the start line and starting again, repeating the cycle every time it ends.

Distributed- practise is interspersed with breaks which can either be rest or the practise of another skill, a good example of this technique is long jump training, this involves the athlete performing one long jump, returning to where he/she starts from and thinking about how to make their jump better and what was not right on their last jump then repeating the jump but using the knowledge they have gained from thinking about their previous jumps.

If someone tells you that practise makes perfect you would probably assume they are right because with practise you do get better, but is it true a person can be perfect? In the 1976 Montreal Olympics a gymnast called Nadia Comaneci once gained a ‘perfect’ 10/10, the governing body consequently changed the rules so that gymnasts could only score 9.9 because nobody is ever perfect. The theory behind ‘practise makes perfect’ is that the same movement can be repeated with the same nerve and muscle activity which allows the individual to accurately perform the same movement repeatedly. The greater the repetition the better the individual remembers it. If this repetition of movement is inappropriate for the person i.e. level of ability or age (e.g. a 10 year old can not be expected to do the hang technique in long jump because the learner has not got the necessary power or skill as an adult) they will not achieve it. Also, if the individual practises the skill for so long that they become physically and mentally fatigued or do not have feedback from a coach on their performance, then the quality will worsen and they

will repeat the same incorrect movement and gradually reversing the process, from this you could argue that practise does not make perfect.

It is impossible for anything to be perfect but it is possible for a human to be near perfect, for example Johnny Wilkinson is one of the best rugby union fly half in the world and trains every day for several hours just taking conversions (the ideal model for the argument ‘practise makes perfect’) and usually gets all of the conversions but a human can’t be perfect and even he misses a few ( 0.2%) , this must prove that even the most dedicated of sportsmen/sportswomen, even if they practise all the time, cannot be perfect as their are always surrounding environmental issues such as pressure which need to be taken into account when performing the skill.

Referring to the title ‘practise makes perfect’, practise is said to be;

‘A set of processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent changes in the capability of skilled performance’

(R.Schmidt. Sport and PE)

‘A change in the capability of the individual to perform a skill that must be inferred from a relatively permanent improvement in performance as a result of practise or experience’

(R.Magill. Sport and PE)

My conclusion is that practise can’t make perfect. Nothing that exists is perfect, an athlete can seem to be the best in the world and the best that people have ever seen but if you examine every movement of the athlete (incorporating ability, technique and skill) they are not perfect.