Skill_Acquisition

Juggling “Juggling first dates back to the middle kingdom period of 1994-1781 BC in Egypt as a form of entertainment for the Pharaoh” (Professor Arthur Lewbel) and has now escalated around the world, seeing people all of abilities participate in this activity. Juggling involves the use of fine motor skills as only small muscles of the body are utilized such as the wrist and finger flexors. An advantage of juggling is that it is self-paced therefore individuals of all juggling abilities can be successful through the use of going at a pace suitable to their stage of skill acquisition i.e. cognitive, associative, autonomous. When learning a new skill the individual must incorporate a range of elements and methods to execute the skill to an optimum level. Some individuals may never exceed the cognitive stage however, our ability to reach each stage is affected by a variety of internal and external factors such as feedback (positive or negative) the complexity of the skill (simple or complex), characteristics of the learner (personality), how practice methods are utilized and the environment the skill is performed in (open or closed). The cognitive stage is the basic stage of skill learning, it is characterized by a dominance of thoughts, heavy reliance on demonstration of the skill and frequent large errors. When in the cognitive stage I relied on several amounts of external, delayed feedback and demonstrations to help me improve juggling with maximum correct technique. Instead of focusing on the results (quantity) I focused on the technique (quality) and catching the juggling balls was just a bonus. To help me improve I broke the skill into parts by utilizing part method to ensure I could understand each part of the skill and did this at my own pace in a closed environment where I couldn’t be effected by any external factors. To ensure a rapid improvement I utilized distributed practice, which consists of longer practice with shorter rest periods as this improved my skill at a faster rate whilst still giving me rest periods to re-motivate myself. The fundamental requirement of the cognitive stage is that the individual gains an understanding of the skill and an insight how to do it. After 3 days of practice I had gained an understanding of juggling and what was involved which meant that I was now at the associative stage. The factor that showed I had reached the associative stage was my improved consistency, which can be seen in graphs 3 and 7 as the line illustrates the dramatic improvement. For e.g. on the 4th I was struggling to achieve over 3 catches as my technique was poor leading to a high number of dropped balls, however through persistence and watching demonstrations on the 7th my technique had dramatically improved and my catches increased. Graph 7 shows the dramatic increase of my best result up to 8, which was achieved 3 times in this practice session and illustrates the increase of catches from 3-8 as the practice went on. The associative stage is characterized by an emphasis of practice. Individuals experience some errors in this stage however they aren’t as high as that in the Cognitive stage and the individual is able to recognize these errors and improve them through internal and external feedback. In this stage I developed fluency in my movement as my kinesthesis improved through repetition of the skill. Through the positive internal and external feedback my confidence grew and I began to try new things to help improve my skill level. For e.g. I tried receiving concurrent feedback which was ineffective as it distracted me from effective performance and I also tried making juggling a competition between my friends and I which proved extremely effective in skill development as the competition made us all strive to achieve a higher number of catches. I changed from using part practice method and used whole method to maintain the perpetual motion of juggling. I incorporated goal setting and visualization to outline what I wanted to achieve and how I was going to do it, which worked to a high degree as it reminded me of what I was striving for. For e.g. I made a goal to be able to achieve nine catches with 3 balls and before trying this I visualized the goal and how I would feel if I achieved this, this helped me to become more intrinsically motivated and enthusiastic about the task and once I achieved this goal I was then more motivated to continue and strive for a larger number of catches. I applied consequences in this stage for low concentration, low motivation and silly mistakes. Because of these physiological factors I also used massed practice, which is characterized by longer rest periods than that of distributed practice, which is essential for recovery after running, push-ups etc and as it kept me motivated and focused on the technique of juggling and the knowledge of my results, resulting in improved skill performance which is seen in graph number 1 as it shows my increase in average of results as from the 8th to the 13th each session resulted in an increase of catches from 2-14 which was due to more motivation and concentration. The associative stage of skill acquisition is the practice stage, however it may take some individuals a longer amount of time to proceed to the autonomous stage, which could be due to personal characteristics, motivation or psychology factors. In the 12-day duration of learning juggling I was unable to progress into the autonomous stage, which could have been due to a number of reasons, the main one being the time frame. As each individual is different they will have different learning abilities and if I had a longer period of time I would have been able to proceed to this stage, as through practice I would have improved even more. The Autonomous stage is the advanced stage of skill acquisition where the individuals perform the skill reflexively. This stage is characterized by few errors, ability to detect and correct errors as they occur and speed and efficiency. If I were to make this stage I would have begun to combine speed and accuracy into a fluent sequence, made use of internal feedback as by this stage I would be able to detect and correct my own errors (Knowledge of performance) and incorporate pressure situations such as adding another ball in, counting down from a certain number in which I had to juggle for, juggle in more open environments such as wind and direct sunlight and juggling all 3 balls in one hand. The autonomous stage is an advanced stage in which the individuals whom have reached this stage have a strong kinesthetic sense, constant anticipation and timing, a positive mental approach and consistency throughout their performance, which is seen in the way they execute the skill as they have a feel of the movement and how it was performed, can ‘read’ the game through anticipating what will happen next and through their quick reactions to stimuli. My individual characteristics strongly influenced the speed at which the skill was developed. Juggling is a skill that I have never participated in before however as I have participated in a number of sports that involve hand-eye coordination, it provided me with experience of elements that were analogous to that in juggling. For example, as I have played netball and softball my prior experience in catching helped me accelerate the initial stage of the learning process. My personality played a large part in skill acquisition as my determination and persistence when I couldn’t get the skill right guided me to continue trying and develop new ways to improve. For e.g. On the 5th November I had to go back a step and use two juggling balls which lowered my confidence however through determination and concentration this step back played a vital part in my improvement as it improved my technique which helped me in later stages. This step is seen in graph 1 as on the 5th my performance average was 5.18 as I moved back a step however two days later on the 7th I achieved an average of 5.8 with 3 balls which couldn’t have been achieved without taking a step back to using two balls as this step corrected my technique which led me to become a more efficient juggler. Confidence and motivation were two inconsistent factors within my learning of juggling. At the beginning of learning the skill I felt confident as I was having fun and thought I would be able to proceed to the next level in a short period of time, however once I progressed to 3 balls and experienced difficulties resulting in me moving back to 2 balls my confidence decreased and didn’t increase again until I achieved the correct technique with the two balls to proceed back to 3. Confidence was vital to me to become successful at juggling which involved me having belief in myself in order to achieve high results. My motivation towards the learning of juggling was positive as I was treated with respect, received praise, encouragement and recognition for my effort. However this motivation quickly turned negative as I began to become disinterested in the skill resulting in negative feedback on my poor performance. To eliminate this negative attitude I incorporated consequences for negative attitude and “silly mistakes” which included sit-ups, push up’s and the occasional run. I also used my personality to develop the skill as I’m an intensely competitive person I used the people around me to push myself to a higher level. These motivators improved my performance dramatically as I was now interested in exceeding my high scores. To a high degree my motivation was intrinsic as I was “primarily determined by the inherent desire to achieve optimal skill” (Health moves 2) level in this activity. However to a small degree I was extrinsically motivated as if I succeeded this task it would motivate me to also exceed expectations in part 2 of the assignment to obtain satisfactory marks as a reward. When these physiological factors and psychological factors rose, performance increased towards an optimum level. For e.g., When I incorporated running as a consequence for silly mistakes my heart rate began to rise and as there were consequences for my actions I was more motivated to succeed which in response improved my performance level. These results showed the link between physiological and psychological factors and how both factors can be used to a high degree to improve skill acquisition. My improvement due to physiological and psychological factors can be seen in graph 1 as on the 9th I began incorporating these factors into my training and it has been increasing each session from a high of 5.37 without utilizing these factors, when I incorporated them into training I went from 6.3 on the 9th to finish at 10.3 on the 13th which is a dramatic improvement and shows that I learn skills more efficiently through applying psychological and psychological factors into my training. My juggling results could have been more reliable by ensuring I juggled in the same conditions at the same time each day and for the same amount of time. As I juggled in different times of the day and for different durations my results may have been affected as I didn’t control the variables. For e.g. Juggling at 1:00 each day for 10 minutes in the same area would have given me more reliable results as I was keeping the variables constant. Skill acquisition is an immensely complex process and different methods work better for each individual. Achieving an optimal level of skill acquisition relies on feedback, the complexity of the skill, Characteristics of the learner, how practice methods are utilized and how the individual incorporates the performance elements, which is seen in my results as my inability to be motivated the whole duration of the task affected the stage I reached of skill acquisition. However I was extremely proud of my results and the different methods of learning I realized worked for my personality, which I can now utilize when learning new skills in my life.