Skill Acquisition
For an instructor, it is important to understand the learning process their students go through as they develop their technique and learn new skills.
Fitts and Posner (Human Performance 1967) developed a theory that suggests a three phases process, and at each phase the student will have different needs from the instructor.
No one can go from not being able to do something directly to being able to do it. All people need to pass through these phases of learning: cognitive, associative and autonomous.
Cognitive Phase Characteristics
- The student needs demonstrations and verbal explanations
- Trial and error takes place
- Performances are inconsistent, the instructor should expect errors
Associative Phase Characteristics
- Longer than the cognitive phase, students sometimes never leave this phase
- Learners begin to recognise and eliminate mistakes
- Performances become more consistent
- Motor programmes are developed with subroutines becoming more coordinated resulting in the skill becoming smoother
- The learner is able to recognise and act on relevant cues
- The learner develops the ability to use kinaesthetic feedback to detect their errors
Autonomous Phase Characteristics
- The student is able to perform the skill with minimum conscious thought and can concentrate on tactical situations
- The motor programme is established and stored in the long term memory and is able to be recalled with little prompting
- Self confidence is increased and the student is able to consistently correct performance
- When feedback is given it can be specific and highlight errors to ensure improvement
- Improvements are slow and if practice is not maintained the student may return to the associative phase