1. Stages of Learning
Chapter 5

2. Fitts and Posner’s Three Stage Model
COGNITIVE STAGE
ASSOCIATIVE STAGE
AUTONOMOUS STAGE
Development of basic movement pattern
Refinement of movement pattern
Performance of movement virtually automatic
Practice

3. Cognitive Stage High degree of cognitive activity
Attentional demands high, limited to movement production
Movements lack synchronization and appear choppy and deliberate
Numerous errors, typically gross in nature
Lacks capability to determine cause of errors or correct them

4. Associative Stage More consistent
Attentional demands for movement production decrease
Fewer, less gross errors
Better at detecting cause of errors
Begin to develop appropriate error correction strategies

5. Autonomous Stage Highest level of proficiency
Not all learners will reach this stage
Attention reallocated to strategic decision-making
Consistent
Confident
Make few errors and can generally detect and correct those errors that do occur

6. Practical Application
Choose a skill and generate a list of practical tips practitioners could follow based on Fitts and Posner’s characteristics of learners across the three stages.
See Cerebral Challenge #1 on page 100

7. Gentile’s Two-Stage Model
GETTING THE IDEA OF THE MOVEMENT
Development of ability to
discriminate between regulatory and non-regulatory conditions
Development of basic
movement pattern
Closed Skill
FIXATION
Refinement of movement pattern
Open Skill
DIVERSIFICATION
Adaptation of movement to conform to ever-changing environmental demands

8. Getting the Idea of the Movement
Goal is to develop an understanding of movement’s requirements
Have to learn to discriminate between regulatory and non-regulatory conditions

9. Fixation/Diversification
Goal is refinement
Fixation – Closed skills
How should skills be practiced?
Diversification – Open skills

10. Practical Application
Choose a skill and generate a list of practical tips practitioners could follow based on Gentile’s two stages of learning.
See Cerebral Challenge #3 on page 103

11. Review Questions
How does the role of the practitioner shift as the learner progresses through Fitts & Posner’s stages of learning? Through Gentile’s two stage model?
Explain the relationship of fixation/ diversification to closed and open skills.

12. Inferring Progress: Learner And Performance Changes
Coordination and control; freezing degrees of freedom
Muscle activity; reduction to only those needed
Energy expenditure; reduction as movement becomes more efficient and coordinated
Consistency;consistently correct motion or incorrect?
Attention; less conscious attention; attention may be detrimental; visual attention on relevant stimuli
Knowledge and memory; access information quicker, solve problems more quickly with fewer errors

13. Inferring Progress: Learner And Performance Changes continued
Error detection and correction; better able to interpret sensory receptor info in recognition schema; may stop a performance to avoid an inefficient movement
Self-confidence; more success breed more motivation to continue; shoot for 80% success

14. Review Questions
Describe how a person’s capability of detecting and correcting error changes as a result of practice and moving from early to later stages of learning. Provide an example to illustrate this change.
Describe how novices try to control the degrees of freedom of various limbs as they begin to learn a new skill. Give an example.
Discuss how the muscles used change as a result of practice, and explain why this happens.

15. Assessing learning from coordination dynamics
One observes stability and transitions of:
Temporal movement coordination patterns
Spatial movement coordination patterns
The stability or instability of performance across trials helps the observer characterize learning

16. Performance Curves
Used to assess progress over time

17. Two performance characteristics can be observed with performance curves
Improvement
Consistency

18. Types of Performance Curves

19. Linear Curve
Performance
outcome
Proportional increase in performance over time
Time or trials

20. Negatively Accelerated Curve
Performance
outcome
Early improvement but slows during latter practice
Time or trials

21. Positively Accelerated Curve
Slight gain early but great improvement later
Performance
outcome
Time or trials

22. S-Shaped Curve
Performance
outcome
Combination of performance curves
Time or trial

23. Typical Performance Curve
Performance is erratic but improving
Time or trials

24. Practice performance may misrepresent learning
Practice performance may overestimate or underestimate learning
Practice artificially inflates performance
Transfer and retention test should be given
Performance plateaus
Period when little or no improvement occurs

25. Performance Plateau
Period of time during the learning process in which no overt changes in performance occur
May be transitional period in learning process
Not always indicative of cessation of learning
Other factors: fatigue, anxiety, lack of motivation
Limited by performance measurement used

26. Retention and Transfer Tests
Both measure persistence of improved skill performance
Retention test
Skill performance test give following a period of no practice
Transfer test
Measurement of the adaptability of a response determined by testing learner’s ability to use a skill in a novel context or manner

27. Assessing learning by retention tests
A common measure to assess the performance characteristic of improvement
Typical administration of a retention test
Perform the skill in practice
Period of no practice
Retention test is administered to determine amount retained

28. Assessing learning by transfer tests
Assess the performance characteristics of adaptability
Performing a practiced skill in:
Novel context that changes
Without augmented feedback
Physical environment
Personal characteristics
Novel skill variations

29. Review Questions
Why aren’t performance plateaus indicative that a person has quit learning?
What characteristics may be represented on a learning curve?
Compare and contrast retention and transfer tests.