Practice

• Whole practice is teaching/practicing a skill as a complete action. E.g practicing a golf swing as a whole. It's suitable for simple, continuous and high organisation skills.
• Advantage of whole practice is it helps fluency, saves time, creates a mental image and kinaesthetic feel for the skill.
• Disadvantages of whole practice is it's lots of information to process, de-motivating if no early success and is unsuitable for complex skills.
• Part practice is isolating a subroutine for practice before putting the skill back together. E.g practicing the 4 separate subroutines of a tennis serve. It's suitable for complex, closed, serial and dangerous skills.
• Advantages of part practice are reduces amount of information to process, gains confidence by learning each element separately and is good for cognitive learners.
• Disadvantages of part practice is that it is time consuming and it can limit kinaesthetic awareness.
• Progressive part practice is where subroutines are isolated for specific practice before gradually linking components back together. It is suitable low organisation and serial skills. E.g triple jump.
• Advantages of progressive part practice is it allows weaknesses to be targeted and gives better kinaesthetic awareness.
• Disadvantages of progressive part practice is it can be slow to process, can limit kinaesthesis and can be a slow and boring process.
• Whole part whole practice is when teaching an entire skill before isolating part of it (often the weakest) then practicing it as a whole. It's suitable for serial and low organisation skills. E.g a basketball layup.
• Massed practice is when the learner practices continuously without rest intervals. It's suitable for discrete and simple skills. E.g repeating a rally in badminton.
• Advantages of massed practice are improved fitness, develop kinaesthesis and learn skills quickly.
• Disadvantages of massed practice are fatigue, demotivation, requires high fitness levels and can be boring.
• Distributed practice involves practice sessions with rest intervals included. It's suitable for continuous, complex and fatiguing skills. E.g a swimmer performing a length of the pool then resting.
• Advantages of distributed practice are maintained motivation and rest breaks allow opportunity's for feedback or mental rehearsal.
• Disadvantages of distributed practice are it can be boring for experienced performers and may take longer to learn a skill.
• Fixed practice involves a specific movement pattern being practiced repeatedly in the same environment. It's suitable for closed, self paced and simple skills. E.g a badminton player repeatedly practicing a flick shot.
• Advantages of fixed practice are habitual movements can be learned effectively and few irrelevant stimuli to interfere with the skill.
• Disadvantages of fixed practice are that it could become boring and if you perform the skill wrong the first time you may continue to perform it wrong every time.
• Varied practice involves skills being practiced in a variety of different environments to develop experience. It's suitable for open, complex and externally paced skills. E.g a variety of passing drills in football.
• Advantages of varied practice are developed schemas, developed strategies for different situations and increased desicion making skills.
• A disadvantage of varied practice is that you need to already have a grooved in motor programme in a fixed environment.