Nonlinear Pedagogy: An Effective Approach to Cater for Individual Differences in Learning a Sports Skill (Forehand)

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 Nonlinear Pedagogy: An Effective Approach to Cater for Individual Differences in Learning a Sports Skill (Tennis Forehand)

                                                           Photo by Chino Rocha on Unsplash

Here's a link to my more detailed summary of the paper if you want a deeper insight 
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Nonlinear Pedagogy: An Effective Approach to Cater for Individual Differences in Learning a Sports Skill

🚀 Article in 3 Sentences

  1. The researchers set out to examine the difference between a Linear Pedagogy and a Non-Linear Pedagogy in learning the forehand groundstroke. “It was predicted that while the NP group would perform better in accuracy scores, it would produce lower movement criterion scores and display a greater variety of movement patterns to achieve the task goal, as compared to the LP group, indicating the presence of degeneracy”
  2. After the pre-test, the 24 participants took part in a 4 week intervention. 1 group followed a LP intervention and the other followed a NLP. They took part in a post test analysis and a retention test which took place 4 weeks after post test. The results of retention test are very interesting.
  3. Despite not typically performing the Forehand in an ‘ideal’ way the participants still improved their accuracy scores just as much. There was signs of ‘degeneracy’ in the NLP group. “Degeneracy plays a functional role in helping performers to adapt to ever-changing task demands during practice and performance “

🤝Impressions

This was a very nice research article. Even though some parts were written in a very academic way there was still lots of takeaways for coaches. Looking at the design of the interventions would give coaches a good contrast between what is involved in a ‘Linear’ approach and what is involved in a ‘Non-Linear’ approach.

🎾How Article will influence my coaching

  • NLP is a pedagogy for humans and learners as complex adaptive systems
  • Degeneracy is the ability to achieve the task goal in different ways based on the changing constraints in the environment. This is the ability we are trying to improve when teaching a skill from a NLP perspective.
  • We can use constraints to set up boundaries in which learners can explore functional solutions based on the confluence of constraints
  • When discussing different approaches to teaching the forehand to coaches this would be a really nice way to show the contrast between approaches
  • An understanding of NLP allows you to implement a CLA approach effectively. NLP is grounded in the CLA. It provides a framework for coaches to implement the CLA in a principled way. It allows the coach to design sessions that respect the non-linear nature of learning
  • The most important aspect of Representative Learning Design is that the key information from the environment is represented.

🖐 Who should read it?

This is a great paper to read for anyone interested in Skill Acquisition. It highlights the different effects that the two approaches have on the ‘acquisition’ of a particular skill over a short time frame.

🥇Top Quotes

💡 Grounded in the constraints-led approach, Nonlinear Pedagogy (referred to from here as NP) advocates the manipulation of key constraints that form boundaries for the learner to explore functional movement solutions 

 💡 When it comes to teaching sports skills, NP provides the appropriate framework for practitioners to cater for individual complexities and dynamic learning environments. 

 💡 In NP, learners are encouraged to experiment with different movement patterns and adapt individual coordinative structures to achieve functional movement solutions 

 💡 Degeneracy is the ability for complex neurobiological systems (i.e., learners in this case) to achieve different solutions for the same task goals and provides the individual with an improved capacity to deal with information-rich dynamic environments 

 💡 Research from an ecological dynamics perspective on skilled performance in sport has demonstrated the relationship between performance accuracy and functional variability, highlighting that degeneracy plays a functional role in helping performers to adapt to ever-changing task demands during practice and performance 

 💡 In essence, the NP approach was able to cater for individual learning differences such that each child did not have to conform to a pre-determined movement pattern but were provided suitable boundaries to explore and discover unique functional movement solutions. 

💡 From a practical viewpoint, practitioners should be less concerned if learners are not performing the “correct” movement pattern but emphasize instructions that focus on ensuring representativeness, establishing information-movement couplings, movement outcomes, functional movement variability and the manipulation of constraints so that learners can explore and discover effective movement solutions 


Link to Paper

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0104744

Reference for Paper

Lee, M. C. Y., Chow, J. Y., Komar, J., Tan, C. W. K., & Button, C. (2014). Nonlinear pedagogy: an effective approach to cater for individual differences in learning a sports skill. PloS one, 9(8), e104744.


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