Individual Differences and Motor Abilities

1
Individual Differences and Motor Abilities

• Chapter 6

2
Objectives

• Understand the concept of individual differences
• Discuss the nature of motor abilities
• Discuss several things practitioners should
  remember about peoples abilities
• Explain how a practitioner might use the concept
  of motor abilities to classify skills and perform
  task analyses
• Discuss the difficulties inherent in predicting a
  persons future performance success based on
  assessments of that persons abilities

3
Preview

• Why do some people appear to be inherently more
  skilled in a particular sport than other people,
  even with little or no practice?
• Is it because of inherent abilities, transfer
  from similar activity, or another reason?

4
Overview

• Characteristics people have that affect
  performance and their ability to reach goals
• Importance of understanding peoples abilities so
  that researchers can classify skills and perform
  task analysis
• Difficulty predicting a persons future skilled
  performance based solely on abilities

5
Individual Differences

• Abilities
• Attitudes
• Body types
• Psychological factors
• Learning style
• Maturation
• Motivation
• Experience

(continued)
6
Individual Differences (continued)

• Why do some people perform specific activities
  better than other people?
• Why does a great sprinter rarely (if ever)
  become a great distance runner?

7
Studying Performance

• Individual differences
• Experimental approachusing variables that are
  common to the entire group to assess performance
• Differential approachmethods used to examine
  individual abilities or differences factors that
  make people different from each other

8
Studying Performance Abilities

• Abilities are stable characteristics derived
  through genetics and maturation and are not
  affected greatly by practice.
• Examples are visual acuity, color vision, height,
  build, reaction speed, manual dexterity, and
  kinesthetic awareness.

9
Abilities

• All people have abilities, but the strength of
  them varies among people.
• A combination of abilities is required for
  performing any given motor task.
• Even with extensive experience, a person lacking
  the fundamental abilities required for a
  particular task will never achieve high levels of
  performance.

10
Skills

• Developed with practice
• Modified with practice
• Vast number
• Depend on different subsets of abilities

11
Correlation

• The ability to measure the strength of a
  relationship between performance scores on two
  tasks similarities between tasks

(continued)
12
Correlation (continued)

• r correlation coefficient
• Range from -1 to 1
• Line of best fit

(continued)
13
Correlation (continued)

• Graph the following values of r and explain what
  each one means.
• r .90
• r -.90
• r .50
• r -.50
• r 0

14
Abilities vs. Skills

• Abilities
• - Genetically determined
• - Stable
• - Limit ability to perform
• Skills
• - Developed by practice
• - Developed by experience

15
Theories That Explain Abilities

• General motor abilityA single global ability is
  the basis for all motor behavior.
• Specificity hypothesisMany specific, independent
  motor abilities are the basis for every motor
  performance.

16
Grouping Abilities

• Factor analysis can identify possible groupings.
• Henry and Fleishman propose that abilities are
  independent of each other.
• The performance of whole-body coordinated
  movements in the real world has never been
  examined.

17
Identifying Learners Abilities

• Good practitioners can identify a learners
  strong and weak abilities and tailor instruction
  accordingly.
• Many movements are so complicated that scientists
  dont know which abilities are required for a
  specific task, and studies are often laborious
  and expensive.

(continued)
18
Identifying Learners Abilities (continued)

• People tend to repeat activities in which they
  are successful. As a result, it is often
  difficult to determine whether the person has
  strong abilities or good skills due to practice.
• The prediction of abilities changes as the task
  level progresses from beginner to expert.

(continued)
19
Identifying Learners Abilities (continued)

• Abilities and success are difficult to predict in
  early movement performance.
• High-level skills, stability, and expert patterns
  of abilities come later.
• Predicting abilities is largely a guessing game.

20
Practitioners and Abilities

• Should expect different abilities and know that
  performance will be affected
• May be able to determine which activities people
  are better suited for
• Get people to improve skills where abilities are
  not strong
• Use task analysis

21
Specific Abilities and Performance

• Explosive strengththe ability to expend a
  maximum of energy in one brief forceful act
• Static strengththe ability to exert force
  against a relatively heavy weight or immovable
  object
• Dynamic strengththe ability to repeatedly move
  or support the weight of the body

(continued)
22
Specific Abilities and Performance (continued)

• Staminathe ability to exert the entire body for
  a prolonged time
• Reaction timeinterval between an unanticipated
  stimulus and beginning of response
• Perceptual timingability important for tasks
  requiring accurate judgments about the time
  course of events

(continued)
23
Specific Abilities and Performance (continued)

• Finger dexterityability necessary for tasks
  requiring manipulation of small objects
• Multilimb coordinationability important for
  tasks requiring coordination of large-muscle
  movements and limbs

24
Questions

• What should movement practitioners do if they do
  not know the task analysis for a particular
  skill?
• How can movement practitioners help parents?
• How does mood affect performance?