Expert-Novice Differences in Planning Strategies during Collegiate Singles Tennis Competition

Abstract

Research examining planning strategies used by high-strategy open-skill performers is limited. This study examined planning responses of collegiate varsity (experts, n = 6) and beginner (novices, n = 6) women tennis players between points during competition. Other articles focused on expert-novice differences in problem representations (quantitative analyses of verbal data via audiotaping) accessed during simulated situations and during actual competition (immediate recall point interviews) and performance skills during competition (via videotaping). Mann-Whitney U tests on verbal report measures indicated experts generated more total, varied, and sophisticated goal, condition, action, and do concepts than novices. Experts planned for actions based on elaborate and sophisticated action plan and current event profiles; novices rarely planned and they lacked these memory structures. Differences in internal self-talk were also noted.

Procedural Knowledge, Decision Making and Performance in Women's Volleyball According to Age Group and Specific Experience

“…Findings from the present study showed similar results according to age group and player's specific experience, which was somewhat expected since usually the most experienced players play in adult teams. Indeed, adult teams and more experienced players presented more goal concepts, in agreement with previous studies [10,18], in which more experienced players also presented more goal concepts. However, in tennis experts and novices have been shown to generate a similar number of goal concepts [8,9].…”

“…Previous studies have differentiated experts from novices mainly through divergences in age, years of experience, competition experience and players' ranking in their leagues [8][9][10]. In spite of the analysis of the extreme groups (i.e., experts and novices) having promoted valuable information to the research and practical domain this approach presents some limitations.…”

“…The expert-novice paradigm has been dominant in the sport expertise research [5,[7][8][9][10]. Findings indicate that the knowledge of expert players (namely classified according to their experience) in relation to the novices is larger, deeper, better planned, more structured and organized and more sophisticated.…”

“…In the research by McPherson [8][9][10] in tennis, three-goal hierarchy levels were differentiated. In this study, hierarchical levels of goals and conditions subconcepts about own team members were also analyzed as they are relevant in team sports [17]: (i) level 0: player's sub concept goals about themselves; (ii) level 1: player's sub concept goals about team members; (iii) level 2: player's sub concept goals about their opponent; (iv) level 3: sub concept goals of other nature (reduced 'n').…”

“…A verbal interview protocol adapted from McPherson [10] was implemented for the evaluation of the procedural knowledge in action of the left-side attackers during the competition. This protocol was conducted immediately after randomly chosen live game actions, more specifically after attack actions as recommend by McPherson [10], in a minimum of 4 and maximum of 6 attacks for each player. This type of protocol was also implemented in research within different sports, such as: tennis [8-10, 25, 26], base ball [27], and volley ball [17].…”