Description
1. Pick TWO of the motor learning principles listed below that you have been using to learn the selected motor
skill which is JUGGLING.
2. For EACH, provide the following:
1. The principle’s name and definition (make sure to cite our textbook properly)
2. A description of how the principle is helping you to progress through the Fitts & Posner Stages
of Learning (cognitive, associative, and autonomous stages) (BE SPECIFIC)
3. The hurdles you have faced when trying to employ the principle as a learning strategy (BE
SPECIFIC)
Textbook: Magill, R. A. & David Anderson. (2016). Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Appli-
cations (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Motor Learning Principles:
1. [CH07] Speed-accuracy trade-off principle
• A characteristic of motor skill performance in which the speed at which a skill
is performed is influenced by movement accuracy demands. The trade-off is that
increasing speed yields decreasing accuracy, and vice versa.
2. [CH09] Action-effect principle (hypothesis) – internal vs external focus
• The proposition that actions are best planned and controlled by their intended ef-
fects. When related to attention focus, this hypothesis proposes that the learning
and performance of skills are optimized when the performer’s attention is directed
to the intended outcome of the action rather than on the movements themselves.
3. [CH11] Encoding specificity principle
• A memory principle that indicates the close relationship between encoding and re-
trieval memory processes. It states that memory test performance is directly related
to the amount of similarity between the practice and the test contexts; i.e., the more
similarity, the better the test performance will be.
4. [CH13] Transfer of learning principle – positive or negative
•The influence of prior learning on the learning of a new skill or the performance of a skill in a new context.
5. [CH14] Augmented feedback principle – concurrent, terminal, etc.
• A generic term used to describe information about a performance that supplements
the sensory feedback and comes from a source external to the performer; it is some-
times referred to as extrinsic or external feedback.
6. [CH14] Cognitive mediation theory (principle)
• A theory for explaining the benefit of a demonstration proposing that when a person
observes a skilled model, the person translates the observed movement information
into a cognitive code that the person stores in memory and uses when the observer
performs the skill.
7. [CH16] Practice variability principle – random vs blocked practice
• The memory and performance disruption (i.e., interference) that results from per-
forming multiple skills or variations of a skill within the context of practice.
8. [CH17] Distribution of practice principle – Distributed vs Massed
• Distributed is a practice schedule in which the amount of rest between practice
sessions or trials is relatively long. Massed is a practice schedule in which the
amount of rest between practice sessions or trials is very short.
9. [CH17] Overlearning
• A practice that continues beyond the amount needed to achieve a certain performance
criterion.
10. [CH18] Whole vs part practice principle
• Skills that are high in organization and low in complexity are best served through
whole practice. The part practice method generally involves breaking down the
skill into natural parts or segments, practicing those parts separately until they are
learned, and then integrating them to perform the skill in its entirety
