How can a coach help players acquire the necessary ingredients for advanced decision-making? Coaches should challenge and stretch players perceptual development, alongside the grooving of motor (technical) skills. This is appropriate for players beyond the age/stage of approximately ten/eleven years of age when Ross (1976) found that the brain is more capable of utilising information. Before this, it has been suggested that windows of opportunity should be predominantly filled with other development aspects. Nevertheless, we must not overlook the fact that elite players even as young as eight years old have been separated from novices on the basis of perceptual and cognitive skills (Ward & Williams, 2003), indicating that factors in addition to age should be considered.
How does the coach ensure the perceptual stream is stretched and challenged? Feedback and practice design, as two of the most important aspects of a coach’s role, lead to appropriate stimulation.
Summary, bandwidth and descriptive feedback are thought to be three types (Williams and Hodges, 2005) of feedback most beneficial to long-term memory learning and therefore the development of decision- making. These approaches allow for the practice to flow, replicating the levels of responsibility for decision-making that players experience during match-play.
How much instruction should be given? Every situation is different and the younger the player the more feedback may be needed. High instruction might bring about an improvement in short-term performance, but not necessarily lead to long-term retention of learning. In turn, a problem-solving approach that gives ownership, autonomy and responsibility to the player may not have a significant impact on short-term performance, but will increase the likelihood of long-term retention – of both learning and motivation. (Williams and Hodges, 2005)
Are certain styles of questioning more beneficial than others? Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) - revised in 2001 by Anderson & Krathwhol may help as a guide with this; as the old adage says: ‘if you want good answers, you’d better ask good questions’.
Knowing what level of learning each of your players is at, as well as their preferred learning styles can help the formulation of appropriate questions. Framing these questions within a summary, bandwidth and/or descriptive feedback approach as well as a question and answer style of feedback, might produce an effective tool for encouraging decision-making in action. This approach can stimulate the development of the knowledge and retrieval structures of the brain and nervous system.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
BLOOM’S TAXONOMY has 3 domains. It’s beyond the capability of this article to go into detail but below is an example of the Cognitive (Brain processes) domain with associated categories for each level:-
Level 1: Remember Level 2: Understand Level 3: Apply Level 4: Analyse Level 5: Create/Build Level 6: Evaluate
Once knowledge is obtained of the level of learning players are at, this might be used as a simple checklist for designing relevant questions to ask, session objectives and problems to solve for developing capabilities that a particular group of players require.
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