Types of Guidance

- Visual guidance helps the learner form their mental image of the skill.

- Demonstrations provide an excellance means of transmitting information about the skill.

- Vision is a dominant sense and we learn through imitation.

- Demonstrations need to be accurate and focus on important aspects of the skill.

- Visual guidance can also be: video, charts and diagrams.

Advantages - very effective at the cognitive stage, allows learner to form an accurate mental image by viewing the demonstrations, allows skilled performers to analyse their performance.

Disadvantages - demonstrations cannot be too complicated or long to avoid information overload, demonstrations need to be very accurate, static visual aids do not give information about movement patterns

Example - teacher demonstrates a chest pass drawing attention to hand position, extension of the elbows and transfer of body weight.

- Most frequent form of guidance.

- Often used along with visual guidance to direct the learner to the important cues.

- Needs to be clear and concise.

- Teacher must get the information across to the learner and they must understand it and relate it to the skill being learnt.

Advantages - effective in learning open skills which require decision making and use of your perception, most effective in the autonomous stage when information can be more detailed and technical.

Disadvantages - amount of information has to be limited, difficult to describe complex skills, learners can become bored of listening, the coach must get the information across in the right way so the learner can relate it to the skill.

Example - The teacher/coach giving information on tactics and strategies in a team talk and they can identify areas which need to be focused on.

Manual - involves the teacher/coach holding and physically manipulating the body of the learner through the correct pattern of movement, e.g. the teacher supports the learner's arms while they perform a tennis forehand.

Mechanical - involves the use of equipment to help support the learner and shape the skill, e.g. trampolinist using a harness or a swimmer using arm bands.

Advantages - Allows the learner to experience how the skill should feel, useful in the early stages of learning to allow the learner to gain a kinaesthetic sense of the movement, very useful in giving confidence and ensuring safety in dangerous skills, allows the learner to experience the spatial and timing aspects of the movement.

Disadvantages - The feel of the movement may not be representative of the actual movement, these forms of guidance have to be removed as soon as possible so the learner does not become dependant, they are of limited use for the experienced performers, as they are designed to eliminate errors they do not give the learner the oppertunity to correct their mistakes.