Recommendations

Recommendations for future skill acquisition for a pass in football and a serve in tennis could be improved by:
Feedback
Reaction time

Feedback is essential to a sports person wanting to improve and to continually improve. Feedback needs to be specific to each sports performer and needs to be delivered at the right time. An example of this in a sporting situation is a long range pass in football. A pass is switched from one side of the pitch to another and it lands straight in a teammates path. The crowd is cheering, your teammates are appreciative of the pass and then the manager has a word with the player..."That was a fantastic pass!" As the manager has said that, it encourages the player to do the switch ball again and gives them confidence. The timing of the feedback was so crucial because if the crowd hadn't of cheered or the manager hadn't of said anything then they might not of thought any different about the pass and maybe might not have attempted the pass again! This example shows that how much feedback can play a part in building confidence and maybe winning a game. But it isn't just positive feedback. Negative feedback should also be used to discourage players from doing bad actions. The more feedback players get straight after producing a skill then the more knowledge and experience they will gain. They will now start to understand the game better.

Tennis and football can be very fast sports at the best of times so reacting to the environment quicker than anybody else (espescially in football) is an advantage to anyone. The game of football is a game of responses. Players respond to the whistle of the referee, respond to instructions from the manager and teammates. Tennis players also respond to umpires decisions and shouts from the crowd. The faster a player can interpret his/her environment then the more benefits he/she will receive. An example of this is when receiving a serve in tennis. A serve could be travelling at 100mph so the player has to react as fast as they can and try and get the ball back in play or even win the point on return. The players with the faster reaction times will obviously have a better chance of perceiving where the ball is going to go and get it back in play. This example shows how important a little thing like reaction times can change the course of games.
(Advanced P.E. for Edexcel 2000)

How Important is Each Key Characteristic Required for Skilled Performance?

In one of my previous articles titled 'Analysing Key Characteristics for Football and Tennis', i said that the key characteristics for football were goal-directed, accurate and consistant, and the key characteristics for tennis were co-ordinated, controlled, goal-directed, accurate and consistant. However, although these were the few characteristics i picked out to say that these were the most important for each skill in each of the sports, i am now going to put forward an arguement considereing which one has the highest level of importance.
Different environments could depend on which characteristic is the most important as different situations require different characteristics, so this is the first aspect i am going to analyse. These different environments will include:
Training/Competition
Standard of Competition
Enhancing or Refining Performance

For a pass in football in a training situation, the level of importance of the key characteristics - accuracy and consistancy will both decrease because of the level of competition. Training sessions are set out to improve on weaknesses so if passing was a weakness for the team, then the manager and the coach's will not be as bothered if every pass isn't accurate or consistant as long as an improvement is made. Styles of passes may also vary as it could be a long pass, short pass, bended pass, driven pass, etc. In a training situation not every player takes all of the training session seriously so concentration will be a factor when producing the skill. In training sessions you work on different things such as: formations, free kicks, corners etc and play is often stopped and re-worked. As the training session maybe constantly stopped this will not be a realistic situation compared to if it was a competitive match where play never stops and the player has to constantly be aware of their surroundings (perceptual skills).
In a competitive match all three characteristics (goal-directed, accurate and consistant) are important but i think that if nothing was goal-directed then there wouldn't be any targets and there would be no reason to be accurate or consistant, so there wouldn't be any point in passing the ball! For example, if a pass has to be accurate then that is a target which is being set, so if a target has been set then the pass must be goal-directed as you are trying to achieve your targets - for one player to pass the ball accurately to another teammate.
I also think that goal-directed is the most important characteristic for training aswel because training sessions are for improving so the team can improve in competitive matches, and to improve there has to be a target. Targets are set to be achieved, so if achievement hasn't been made then the performer will not have improved.
Which characteristic out of accurate and consistant is more important in a competitive situation? It is difficult to say because if a pass wasn't consistant then it wouldn't be accurate and if a pass wasn't accurate then it wouldn't be consistant! So i think that in a competitive situation accuracy and consitancy cancel themselves out and have equal importance.
A novice's most important characteristic in any situation will be goal-directed. Skilled performance is goal-directed and requires motivation. They will then start to look at making a pass accurate and then making the pass consistantly accurate. An elite performer in training or in a competitive situation should be looking to make goal-directed, accurate and cosistant equal priorities for passing a ball. They all will have the same amount of importance to an elite performer to increase their level of skilled performance.

For a tennis serve in a training situation, the level of importance of the key characteristics will change. I don't think that a tennis serve will need to be controlled as much because the target will be getting the ball over the net into areas where the opponent will have to work hard to return the ball. A training situation will probably be set out to practice the accuracy of the serve as being accurate will mean the ball is in play. A serve could be controlled but may be controlled too much in the sense that it may take away the higher importance of getting the ball over the net.
Accuracy maybe more important than a serve being controlled but i think that the accuracy and consistancy situation applies in tennis training the same way it did in a football training situation but it all depends on the ability of the performer. If a performers weakness is a tennis serve not being very accurate then as long as an improvement is visible then the performer has improved a part of their weakness, but if accuracy and consistancy are weaknesses shouldn't they be the most important? In some ways i think yes, as these weaknesses need to be corrected but if a tennis player just concentrated on these aspects of their game then they would find weaknesses in other parts of their game due to lack of practice in those areas.
I think the two most important characteristics for a tennis serve in training are being co-ordinated and goal-directed. I think this because if no part of a training session had a target then there wouldn't be any point in the training session so goal-directed is essential for improvement, and co-ordination is very important in a tennis serve as a serve is all about the hand-eye co-ordination. If this hand-eye co-ordination is practiced in a training situation over and over again then the performer will get into a regular pattern and repeat the process when serving in a match situation. If there was no co-ordination then there would be no relationship with throwing and hitting the ball so the performer would be serving the ball in all directions e.g. if a player threw the ball too far behind himself in the air the player would then have to re-correct their body position to try and hit the shot in the court but it could already be too late as the damage may have already been done from the throw.
For an elite performer all the characteristics should be as important as each other whether it is in a training or a match situation. A common phrase used is "good habits in training means good habits during matches". An elite performer will work on all aspects of their serve to give them the maximum level of skilled performance where as a novice's main characteristic will be goal-directed as they will want to achieve something from their skilled performance. A novice will only work on certain parts of the serve in training (co-ordination/accuracy/consistancy/controlled) before tackling other areas as their knowledge and experience would not be able to cope with an elite performer. In a competitive situation a novice will look to build on success in matches and then work on more areas.

The standard of competition can also affect how important a characteristic is. If the standard of competition is lower in football then goal-directed will stay at the same level of importance as the targets will not change, but as the standard of competition is lower then the standard of passing doesn't have to be as consistant and accurate as the opposition is playing at a lower level so you will be able to get away with not being as consistant and accurate. I think if the standard is low or high, novice players will still have the same high importance of the skill being goal-directed and the accuracy and consistancy of the skill will also be as high being goal-directed because they will want to be achieving their target to the best of their ability. An elite player playing in a low standard of competition may not even have the characteristic of goal-directed as the player may already know that they are too good for the standard of competition so there are no targets for them to achieve, but on the other hand they could set themselves personal targets during the match e.g. not to give possession away once during the whole match. This would depend on the personality and motivation of the performer.
If the standard of competition is higher then a higher level of performance is required to be able to compete. Passes will need to be accurate just about every time because if only one single pass was not accurate during the whole match, it could be the deciding factor between the two teams as that inaccurate pass could give the opposition a chance to score. As the opposition are of a higher standard then mistakes should be punished. If passes need to be accurate then they will also need to be consistant because if they wouldn't be consistant then they wouldn't be accurate! The goal-directed characteristic will remain as the most important characteristic as targets will still be set no matter what standard of competition. The most obvious target would be to win but this may not always be the case as it could be; to be more accurate with passes during the game; to get more crosses in; to get more shots on target; to win more headers, etc.
If the standard of competition is lower in tennis then the player doesn't have to concentrate on how they control the serve and they also don't have to worry as much about the accuracy and consistancy of the serve as the standard of competition is lower. Although the competition is lower, the player still needs to keep focused. If concentration or mentality is lowered because of the lower level performer who they are playing against, then inaccurate and inconsistant serves may become constant so their standards will have dropped to the lower level performer, so to some extent the player has to keep a good mentality and the level of importance of accuracy and consistancy could be judged to be more important to make sure performance levels don't drop. I think that this theory of dropping and sustaining levels of performance could also apply to co-ordination. The player may become slack as they may feel that they don't need to concentrate as much but this could form errors. Co-ordination needs to stay an important characteristic to sustain performance.
If the standard of performance is higher then it is essential that levels of co-ordination, accuracy and consistancy do not drop because if they do then points can soon be lost. Control needs to be maintained but i don't think that a controlled serve is as important in this situation that accuracy, consistancy and co-ordination because being able to control the serve is good to have but it wont have a bigger influence on winning the player points. Goal-directed is still the main characteristic in my opinion because a serve needs to have a target to try and win points.

Enhancing and refining performance are very different. Enhancing performance is improving your general performance and making your abilities better, where as refining performance is taking your improved performance a step further up to its optimum level e.g. David Beckham is a fantastic passer of the ball but he will refine his passing abilities by practicing his passing until he can't get any better.
For a pass in football, to enhance performance or to refine performance, the characteristics will all be at the same level of importance as each one will have a target (goal-directed) and each one will need accuracy and consistancy to improve in some way whether they are just going to improve generally or whether they are going to take their skilled performance to the highest possible level. If accuracy and consistancy weren't important then they would be no improvement so without these two no improvements can be made in either category (enhanced or refined).
I also think the same about a tennis serve. If a tennis player wants to enhance performance then he will have to improve generally which means the control, the co-ordination, the accuracy and the consistancy of the serve will all improve so they are all essentially important. This also applies to refining performance because as all of the key characteristics i have mentioned for a tennis serve all make up a tennis serve, to refine performance the performer will have to take all of these aspects that extra stage further.
I think that novice's will look at enhancing performance and elite players will look at refining performance. I think this because as i have mentioned above, novice's need to build up their ability first before they can refine their skills, but elite players have already built on their performance and now need to take it to that extra level to become a better player. I don't think any of the key characteristics depending on the level of performance will change in the case of either enhancing or refining performance as both of these require to improve performance, and to improve performance all characteristics of each skill are equally essential.

Analysing Types of Skills Required for Football and Tennis

Passing in football and a serve in tennis require similar but also different types of skill.
Types of skills required for a pass in football are:
Open
Discrete
Gross
Motor - fundamental and complex
Cognitive
Perceptual
Types of skills required for a serve in tennis are:
Closed
Serial
Gross
Motor - fundamental and complex
Cognitive

As you can see from the list above there are several similarities and differences between the two skills but this is because the two skills are produced in different environments.
The similarities between a pass in football and a serve in tennis are that they both require gross, motor and cognitive skills.
They both require gross skills as both skills use large muscle groups to produce the skill. A pass in football will require using the muscles in your hamstring (bicep femoris, semitendinosus and semimembranosus) and a serve in tennis will require using your deltoid (posterior and exterior), bicep brachii and tricep brachii. They don't require fine skills as both a pass in football and a serve in tennis do not involve using intricate movements.
A pass in football and a serve in tennis both require both parts of the motor skill (fundamental and complex) as they both need basic skills to be able to produce complex skills - passing and serving.
Both skills require using cognitive skills as they both involve a great deal of thinking. A pass in football requires decision making such as: how hard to pass the ball, where to pass the ball, to hit the ball in the air or on the ground and who to pass the ball to. A tennis serve also requires decision making such as: how hard to hit the ball, where to hit the ball, whether or not to swerve the ball and where to stand when serving the ball.
There are also a couple of differences between the two skills. I have said that a pass in football requires an open skill where as a serve in tennis requires a closed skill, a pass in football requires a discrete skill where as a serve in tennis requires a serial skill. I have also said that a pass in football requires perceptual skill but i don't think that a tennis serve requires much of this.
A pass in football is an open skill rather than a closed skill because as it is affected by the environment in several different ways as the weather (sunny, rainy, snowy), opposition (who you are playing), teammates position (formation), officials (referees and linesmen), playing surface (firm/soft ground, flat/'bobbly' pitch) and to some extent the crowd influence the skill. The skill is externally paced because other players influence the timing of the skill.
A tennis serve is a closed skill rather than an open skill because a serve isn't affected by the environment as the performer knows exactly what and when to do as they are in a stable situation. The skill is self-paced as the performer controls the rate at which the skill is executed.
A pass in football is a discrete skill rather than a serial or continuous skill because it is single, specific skill which has a clear beginning and end - from the player passing the ball to a team mate receiving the ball. It doesn't contain a series of movements and isn't a continuous skill as a player does not constantly pass the ball for a whole 90 minute football match.
A tennis serve is a serial skill rather than a discrete or continuous skill because it contains a series of movements - throwing the ball up and hitting it over the net. It isn't a discrete skill as it isn't one single movement and it isn't a continuous skill as you don't serve a ball all the way through a tennis match.
I think that a pass in football requires perceptual skill where as i dont think you really need perceptual skill for a tennis serve because when serving the ball the environment doesn't really change so you having got much to interpret. The only real environmental factor is the playing surface as this may vary through the season. A pass in football requires alot of perceptual skills as a pass in football is dependant on the environment as it is constantly changing. You constantly have to decide what to do with the ball depending on the conditions. The main factor is the opposition and teammates e.g. if an opponent is closing you down it narrows down your options of where and who you can pass to.

Definitions of Types of Skill

Different types of skill are for different situations. There are several types of skill which are required for different sports. Here is a list of some types of skill and their definitions:

Open and Closed skills
Open - these are skills which are affected by the environment (opposition, weather, playing surface, crowd, teammates, officials). As the environment is constantly changing your movements have to be constantly adapted. Perceptual skills are needed for open skills as you need to interpret the environment around you. The skills are often externally paced as they are normally in team situations which controls the rate of performing the skill e.g. passing a ball in football.

Closed - these are skills which take place in a stable, predictable environment and the performer knows exactly what and when to do. These skills are not affected by the environment and are often habitual as movement patterns can be easily repeated as there is a clear beginning and end to the skill. Closed skills tend to be self-paced as the performer controls the rate at which the skill is executed e.g. serving in tennis.

Discrete, Serial and Continuous skills
Discrete - these skills are well-defined actions which have a clear beginning and end. They are single, specific skills which make up the actions involved in a variety of sports such as hitting and throwing e.g DARTS - throwing the dart at the board.

Serial - these skills are discrete skills which have been combined to make more complex movement e.g. triple jump.

Continuous - these skills have no obvious beginning or end as the activity is ongoing. The skill is repeated like a cycle as the end of one cycle of movements is the beginning of the next. These skills can be stopped at any moment during the performance e.g. long distance running, swimming.
(www.briamac.demon.co.uk 1997)

Gross and Fine skills
Gross - these involve using large muscle groups in movement.The movements are not very precise but involve many fundamental movement patterns such as walking, running and jumping. Gross skills usually involve strength, endurance and power e.g. weightlifting.

Fine - these involve intricate movements using small muscle groups. The movement tends to be very precise and usually involves a great deal of hand-eye co-ordination e.g. archery.

Motor, Cognitive and Perceptual skills
Motor - there are two types of motor skills - Fundamental and Complex. Fundamental motor skills are the skills which are learned first before going on to more difficult skills (complex motor skills). In order to attempt complex motor skills, fundamental skills have to be mastered. Most skills used in sports and movement activities are often advanced versions of Fundamental motor skills e.g. walking, running and jumping.

Cognitive - these skills involve thinking and making decisions. These skills are learnt. Cognitive skills are used to transfer information and categorize it e.g. a darts player will need to work out which number to go for on the dartboard to give them a chance of winng or to win. As a darts player becomes more experienced, he will remember certain situations and will respond automatically as they have remember which number to go for straight away.

Perceptual - how you interpret your environment around you. These skills are often used for open skills as they depend on the environment. If you have good perceptual skills then you have a good ability to relate visual stimuli to motor responses in an appropriate way.
(Advanced Level Student Revision Guide 2005)

Do Environmental Factors Influence Skilled Performance?

Certain environmental factors such as learning phases, feedback and transfer of learning can influence skilled performance.
The learning phases are the cognitive, associative and autonomous stages of learning. The cognitive stage is at a beginners level and a trial and error method is often used. Demonstrations can be useful at this stage but they need to be accurate because people at this stage of learning do not know the full aspects of the skills so a good role model of a particular skill would be a good demonstration to show. The associative stage is at an intermediate level of performance and can be referred to as the 'practice' stage as errors are found and then removed. The autonomous stage is the expert level of performance where actions become automatic to the performer, where as a performer at the cognitive stage will find skills much more difficult as the skills will be more or less new and will not have been practiced or repeated. Performers who are at the autonomous stage of learning perform more difficult skills automatically as they have been practiced over and over again - the skill has been transferred from the short-term to the long-term memory. For example if a footballer passing the ball or a tennis player serving is at the cognitive stage of learning then the footballer passing the ball will find it difficult to pass the ball accuratley, and the tennis player serving will find it difficult to serve the ball into the area of the court where it should be. But if a footballer passing the ball or a tennis player serving is at the autonomous stage of learning then the footballer will pass the ball very accuratley and the tennis player's hand-eye co-ordination throwing the ball up and where the ball finishes after hitting the ball will be very accurate making it as hard as possible for the opponent to return. Each player will be at an optimum level of performance.

If a footballer makes a bad pass or a tennis player serves the ball into the net twice in a row (double fault) then they would probably receive negative feedback from the coach, manager or crowd etc. By giving negative feedback straight after the skill has not been performed correctly then the performer will have a higher chance of not repeating the skill again - negative reinforcement. The player will also have intrinsic feedback from themself because they will know that it was two bad serves and they should do their best not to make it happen again. However, if a footballer makes a good pass or a tennis player serves an ace then they would probably receive positive feedback. If the positive feedback is given straight away after the skill, the performer will have a better chance of repeating the skill again as he has been praised - positive reinforcement. Being praised by people after doing a correct skill is called extrinsic feedback. The timing of feedback is very important because if feedback is given a week later about a pleyer performing an incorrect skill, the performer might have forgot about the skill they did so the poor skill is more likely to be repeated compared to if it had been given straight away. This also implies to giving feedback a week later for a skill which was performed correctly.

Transfer of learning also influences skilled performance because if you have performed a similar skill compared to your sport then you will already have an understanding of the fundamental motor skills of that skill e.g. tennis serve and a back court shot in badminton. They are both racquet sports so the player will be familiar with holding the racquet (the grip) and will perform a similar follow through action when hitting the ball/shuttlecock. This is called positive transfer. Negative transfer is when one skill stops the learning or performance of another skill e.g. a pass in football and a pass in hockey. Another transfer or learning is bilateral transfer. This is the transfer which takes place from one limb to another e.g. a footballer will learn to kick a ball with their least favoured foot, the actions are learnt through reference by the brain to the preferred foot.

Analysing Key Characteristics in Football and Tennis

I have chosen to analyse football and tennis as my two sports as they are very different. Football is a team sport and you mainly use your feet, and tennis is a racquet sport which involves using your arms to hold the racquet. It is also a singles sport so no team players can influence the way you play, however you do play against an opponent which is the same in football.
In football i think the key characteristics required for passing the ball (skilled performance) are:
Goal-directed
Accurate
Consistant
In tennis i think the key characteristics required for a tennis serve (skilled performance) are:
Co-ordinated
Controlled
Goal-directed
Consistant
Accurate

As you can see from my list above, the similarities with passing a ball in football and a tennis serve are being goal-directed, accurate and consistant. I have put these key characteristics down for being goal-directed because if nothing was goal-directed then there would be no target of what to achieve e.g. passing the ball to one of your teammates, doing a tennis serve making it as difficult as possible so your opponent can't return it back (try and get an ACE).
Both of these skills also need to be accurate and consistant because if they weren't then the footballer passing the ball would be giving the ball away all the time (which could give the other team a chance to score) and the tennis player serving the ball would either be making the serves too easy for the opponent or serving the ball out of play which would eventually lose the player points.
There are also a couple of differences between the two skills in each of the two sports. I have said that it is also very important that a tennis serve should be co-ordinated and controlled, where as in football i don't think these characteristics are as important in passing a ball in football. I dont think they are as important for passing a ball because even though they do have to be co-ordinated and controlled in some way as they both add to the pass being more accurate but as long as the ball reaches its target then it doesn't really matter.
Being co-ordinated is an important characteristic to have in a tennis serve because a tennis serve is split into two parts - throwing the ball in the air, then hitting it over the net. By having good co-ordination you will have a good relationship with your throwing and hitting movement. You will also have a better chance of making it more difficult for your opponent.
A tennis serve also has to be controlled because there is only a small area to hit so if it wasn't controlled then the player has no control of where the ball will land as it could go anywhere, which could lose the player points.

Definition of Skilled Performance

Skilled performance is a skill or movement that is technically correct and is performed individually or by a team. It could be a tactic that is produced by a team which is several movements linked together to achieve a target. Skilled performance is goal-directed and requires motivation. It is often appreciated by managers, teammates and the crowd and can be used as a motivator e.g a trick in football. (BTEC National Sport 2003)

Skilled performance includes the movement being:

Fluent - how smooth and automatic the performance is carried out and how natural the skill comes to the performer.

Co-ordinated - if the player is 'in sync' with their own movements/teammates, how well the player's limbs work together and producing the skill or performance in a way which doesn't make it look 'clumsy'.

Controlled - this shows how much control the performer has over the skill performed. It is not rushed and follows a smooth pattern.

Goal-directed - to have a goal to be achieved at the end of the skill or performance and for the skill to have a purpose.

Efficient - to execute a a skill or performance in the most organised way using the least amount of energy possible to perform the skill correctly.

Consistant - the performer can repeat the skill over and over again using the same movement pattern and getting the same result.

Accurate - if the performer uses the 'optimum' movement pattern and if the skill is target driven and reaches its target successfully.

Aesthetically Pleasing - if the skill or performance is 'pleasing to the eye' (looks good).