LESSON 12: Teaching Psychomotor Skills

• psychomotor skill - well-organized and coordinated activity requiring manual manipulation of thins, movement and language
• regulatory stimuli - external conditions that influence or regulate skill performance and to which the learner must pay attention
• non-regulatory stimuli - external conditions that do not influence skill performance
• 3 Main Groups of Skill

  1. Object-Motor
  2. Language-Motor
  3. Feeling-Motor
• object-motor - behavior that consists of manipulating an object
• language-motor - behaviors or activities with symbolic value and are concerned with communication
• feeling-motor - concerned with communicating attitudes or feelings through movement
• closed skill - a skill performed under stable environmental condition and stimuli
• open skill - a skill performed under changing environmental condition and stimuli
• motor plan - a general mental preconception of what movements will be required to perform a skill
• fixation - practicing the skill in the same way each time to fix a reproducible pattern in memory
• diversification - practicing the skill in a variety of ways so that it can be reproduced in a modified way to meet changing environments at any time
• arousal - a state of being stirred to action
• intrinsic feedback - awareness of performance that arises from within the individual
• extrinsic (augmented) feedback - awareness of performance that is supplied by the external source
• massed practice - continuously repeated practice sessions with very short or no rest periods between trials
• distributed practice - practice sessions interspersed with rest periods
• skills = motor activity + attention, concern, compassion to be shown to patients (Bjork, 1999)

  • school-based
  • hospital-based
• Phases of Skill Learning Gentile's Model

  Stage 1: Getting the idea of the movement

  Stage 2 Fixation/diversification
• stage 1 - have a goal; learner is confronted with a clear-cut need or problem

  • regulatory stimuli
  • nonregulatory stimuli
• stage 2

  • unsuccessful in reaching the goal: repeat stage 1
  • successful in reaching the goal: proceed to fixation/diversification
• bottleneck theory - proposes that our information system can handle a limited number of stimuli at a time

  • people learn to focus their attention through coaching and practice
• motor learning - internal process associated with practice or experiences that results in a relatively permanent change in a person's ability to perform a motor skill
• motor performance - performing skilled actions
• retention test - evaluation in the same environment used during a practice or therapy session

  • measures how well performers learn practiced tasks
• transfer test - evaluation in a different environment than that used during a practice session

  • measures how well performers generalize learning to perform task unpracticed in a different environment
• Stages of Motor Learning

  3-Phase Theory of Skill Acquisition - most influential theory of skill acquisition

  1. Cognitive Stage
  2. Associative Stage
  3. Autonomous Stage
• Cognitive Stage


  Goals of Learning:

  1. To understand the task
  2. To develop strategies to execute the task
  3. To determine ways to evaluate task
• Cognitive Stage


  Performance:

  1. characterized by inaccuracies, slowness, and movements that appear stiff and uncoordinated
  2. requires a high degree of attention and other cognitive processes
• cognitive stage - learning a new motor task
• Associative Stage


  Goals of Learning:

  1. To fine-tune a skill
  2. To produce the most efficient action
• Associative Stage


  Performance: characterized by slower gains in performance and reduced variability
• associative stage - practice of a skill to increase safety or efficiency of a task
• Autonomous/Automatic Stage


  Performance:

  1. Requires little attention and information processing
  2. Learner performs multiple tasks all at the same time
• Instructional Events in Teaching Psychomotor Skills (Briggs, 1981)

  1. Gaining attention
  2. Informing the learner of the objective
  3. Stimulating recall of prerequisites
  4. Presenting the stimulus material
  5. Providing learning guidance
  6. Eliciting performance
  7. Providing feedback
  8. Assessing the performance
  9. Enhancing retention and transfer
• slow-positioning task - sensory feedback is used to guide the action to its endpoint; detect errors during the action
• fast-timing task - sensory feedback is used to detect errors after the action has ended
• Practice Variables

  1. Intensity of practice
  2. Massed vs. Distributed practice
  3. Constant vs. Variable practice
  4. Contextual interference
  5. Part- and whole-task practice
  6. Mental practice
  7. Use of guidance techniques
  8. Use of feedback
  9. Video feedback
  10. Motivation and reinforcement
  11. Frequency and timing of feedback
  12. Focus of attention
• Prepractice Variables

  1. Motivation
  2. Goal Setting
• teacher - arrange for or supervise practice