Observational Learning in Coaching Skill

Observational Learning in Coaching Skill

Tim Smith

        I have never taken a private tennis lesson in my life. In fact, prior to showing up to my first high school tennis practice (after having been cut from the baseball team), I had only played tennis once or twice in a junior high physical education class. Yet, partway through one of my very first drills – volleys – my coach pulled me aside and asked, “You’ve played before, haven’t you?”

One of the primary reasons I feel that Coach Judy mistook me for a more experienced player is that I was an observational learner in two ways. First, I grew up watching some of the all-time greatest tennis players with my parents as they cheered on players like Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, and Martina Hingis. Second, anytime I was standing in line and awaiting my turn, I was watching the varsity players on the other side of the fence as they went through their own drills. I watched their footwork, body movement, and swing path and tried to emulate their actions when I stepped up to strike the ball myself.

Due to my personal experience, I have always tried to implement observational learning into my practice sessions, and I have done so in a variety of ways. When I first became the head coach at Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy, I did more demonstrations myself in an effort to have the girls learn from me. The last couple of years, I would often have my top player do the demonstrations as I believed it would be more beneficial for the girls to pattern their technique after a player that wasn’t nearly a foot taller than them with 15 years more of tennis experience. 

Two of the three ways I currently utilize observational learning focus more on strategy and tactics, while only one focuses on technical skill development. This runs contrary to one study that indicated individual sports like tennis tend to use observational learning more for its “skill function” than for its “strategy function” (Wesch et al., 2007); however, it is likely that my student-athletes observe each other without my direction and benefit from the skill function of observational learning without my guidance. The three ways I intentionally implement observational learning in my practice sessions are player and coach demonstrations, point observation and feedback, and watching our own or professional matches and discussing the strategies and tactics used in those matches. 

    There are two particularly observational learning methods I would like to begin utilizing. First, I would like to use dyad learning - where partnered players will observe each other performing a task before trading places – in the technical skill development of my players, particularly when developing younger student-athletes so as to hopefully improve their skill and belief in themselves (Karlinsky & Hodges, 2018). Second, I would like to find ways to utilize video within practice sessions to take advantage of its benefits when providing attentional cues (Janelle et al., 2003) and feedback particularly when combined with questioning (García-González et al., 2013).

    To effectively implement observational and dyad learning with physical practice – because evidence suggests it to be beneficial to athletes to utilize both when learning a skill (Ong et al., 2012) – tennis coaches could consider making use of all available courts and rotating groups of two through a series of stations that are exploring different aspects of a single skill. If two technical skills need to be practiced in a single session, they should not be practiced consecutively (Larssen et al., 2012). When one player is not performing the skill, he or she should observe the player in action and seek to learn from the execution observed and apply that learning. Pursuing this practice planning will allow for a coach to reap the benefits of observational learning, dyad learning, and physical practice.

References

García-González, L., Moreno, M. P., Moreno, A., Gil, A., & del Villar, F. (2013). Effectiveness of a video-feedback and questioning programme to develop cognitive expertise in sport. PloS One, 8(12), e82270. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082270

Janelle, C. M., Mousseau, M. B., Coombes, S. A., & Champenoy, J. D. (2003). Mechanisms of attentional cueing during observational learning to facilitate motor skill acquisition. Journal of Sports Sciences, 21(10), 825–838.

Karlinsky, A., & Hodges, N. J. (2018). Dyad Practice Impacts Self-Directed Practice Behaviors and Motor Learning Outcomes in a Contextual Interference Paradigm. Journal of Motor Behavior, 50(5), 579–589. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222895.2017.1378996

Larssen, B. C., Ong, N. T., & Hodges, N. J. (2012). Watch and learn: Seeing is better than doing when acquiring consecutive motor tasks. PLoS ONE, 7(6), e38938–e38938. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038938

Ong, N. T., Larssen, B. C., & Hodges, Nicola J. (2012, April). In the absence of physical practice, observation and imagery do not result in updating of internal models for aiming—ProQuest. https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.ohio.edu/docview/953398020?accountid=12954

Wesch, N. N., Law, B., & Hall, C. R. (2007). The Use of Observational Learning by Athletes. Journal of Sport Behavior, 30(2), 219–231.