Application of representative learning design for assessment of common practice tasks in tennis

               

                                               Photo by Julian Schiemann on Unsplash

Here's a link to my more detailed notes if you'd like to take a deeper dive into the paper

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Application-of-representative-learning-design-for-assessment-of-common-practice-tasks-in-tennis

🚀 Article in 3 Sentences

1. Gives a really nice introduction into practice design and to what Representative Learning Design is
2. Go through how they picked up and analysed the data before giving the results showing the differences between the practice tasks and match play behaviours of the players.
3. There is a nice bit at the end where they give 3 Implications for coaches and practitioners

🤝Impressions

Really insightful paper. The comparisons were really good and that they had the access to the HawkEye technology provided a clearer lens into the behaviours of the players.

👨‍🏫Who should read this?

Anybody interested in coaching but especially tennis coaches. The first part of the paper gives a really nice description of what Representative Learning Design is. All tennis coaches should read the part of the paper that looks gives the RPAT scores for the practice tasks.

🎾How Article will influence my coaching

• Information from ball flight and position of opponents are key affordances for tennis players. A representative task in tennis would have to include both these key affordances
• Make sure to sufficiently challenge the players emotionally. They will play a lot different if there are no consequences for their mistakes
• Make sure that the players are not using strategies that won’t help them improve their performance in a game. The example in this study was standing further behind the baseline to give themselves more time.
• It’s very important to understand gender differences in the way the strategies that they use
• Players should be encouraged to exploit the rules/constraints to their advantage to help them win the practice tasks. This will help develop their problem solving and decision making skills

📃Takeaways for coaches

• Take a look at the RPAT. This is a very good starting place for looking at RLD
• When starting out with RLD coaches should design tasks that: more closely simulate the key information from the performance environment and/or challenges the players emotionally. Make every shot important, have consequences present and build a suitable amount of pressure.
• Challenging players emotionally is crucial as they will play differently if they are less apprehensive about the consequences of their mistakes
• Tennis coaches should look at the RPAT ratings given to each task by the independent coaches
• It’s very important that there are consequences for mistakes in practice. Every play/shot should matter.
• It’s very important to understand gender differences in the strategies that they use
• Coaches need to design tasks that develop the players ability to anticipate and pick up information that will help them to coordinate functional movement solutions. They need to include tasks that reduce restrictions on their movements and decision making

🥇Top Quotes

💡 Common practice tasks are not representative of the shot and movement characteristics typical of match play. More careful design of practice appears to be needed. 

 💡 Representative learning design (RLD) is a framework that assesses the degree to which information sampled in experimental and practice tasks is representative of the specific performance contexts that the tasks are attempting to simulate. 

💡 As a starting point coaches should consider designing tasks which more closely simulate the information sources from competition to provide similar decision making demands and/or challenges to the emotional state of the learner . 

 💡 For example, in tennis, ball flight information  and the opponents' on-court position are cited as key affordances (opportunities) for performers to act on 

💡 Given hitting with more speed and/or spin was neither an explicit instruction or included in the tasks goal, one explanation is the tasks failed to successfully represent the psychological constraints of match play. That is players were less apprehensive about the consequence for making mistakes and as a result hit the ball more freely (i.e., faster and with more spin in practice).

Reference

Krause, L., Farrow, D., Buszard, T., Pinder, R., & Reid, M. (2019). Application of representative learning design for assessment of common practice tasks in tennis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise , 41, 36-45.