Redressing the balance: Commentary on “Examining motor learning in older adults using analogy instruction” by Tse, Wong, and Masters (2017)

Abstract

recently published a study that indicated that analogy instruction may help older adults acquire resilient motor skills that require reduced cognitive processing compared to traditional explicit instruction. Although we do not dispute that analogy learning may prove useful for this population, in this commentary, we contend that there are methodological issues in this research-which are shared with previous studies comparing analogy and explicit instruction-that potentially limit ecological validity, impact the size of detected effects, influence the development and understanding of associated theory, and, as such, constrain resulting recommendations for applied practice. Of particular concern is the comparison of the single-item analogy instruction to the list of nine explicit instructions, which risks conflating the effects of the type of instruction with the volume of instruction. We further argue that the benefits of analogy may be more parsimoniously explained by the instruction's capability to succinctly convey skill (rather than its potential for limiting reinvestment), but that this capability may only be realised if the to-belearned analogy is relevant and readily understood by the learner. Finally, we suggest that research in this area must look to incorporate more rigorous methods that compare experimental conditions to representative reference groups that allow us to explore how and when to deploy the myriad instructional tools available to practitioners and learners.

Verbal Instructions and Motor Learning: How Analogy and Explicit Instructions Influence the Development of Mental Representations and Tennis Serve Performance

“…However, it remains unclear whether the benefits of explicit instructions for the intermediate participants might be attributed to the amount or the type of the given instructions (Bobrownicki et al, 2018). Unlike (Schlapkohl et al, 2012) results, and providing the same amount of instructions, we showed that both types of instruction positively influence the outcome performance of intermediate tennis players.…”

“…In previous research, participants in the analogy conditions have frequently been provided with one solitary analogy instruction, while participants in the explicit conditions have been provided with many explicit instructions (e.g., Lam et al, 2009a;Schlapkohl et al, 2012;Schücker et al, 2013). From this, it is difficult to determine whether differences in performance were due to different amounts of instructions used (probably leading to differences in attentional load) or due to differences that could be attributed to the instructions themselves (Bobrownicki et al, 2015(Bobrownicki et al, , 2018. In this study, therefore, an equal number of explicit and analogy instructions was used.…”

The acute effects of analogy and explicit instruction on movement and performance

“…Acute effects of analogy and explicit instruction 4 correspondence to the analogy instructions (see Bobrownicki et al, 2018). For instance, despite the single-instruction analogy condition of Lam et al (2009b) strictly describing movement during the basketball-shooting process, the eight-rule explicit condition not only comprised four rules describing the actual shooting movement, but also four additional…”

“…Another critical consideration, which is only enabled by controlling the quantity and content of the verbal instructions, concerns the systematic investigation of both effective and ineffective analogy and explicit instruction sets (Bobrownicki et al, 2018). In this regard, it is prudent that researchers examine not only when analogies and explicit instructions may be effective, but also aim to identify any variables that may enhance or minimise that effectiveness to enable practitioners to plan appropriately and pre-empt anticipated issues (Bobrownicki et al, 2018). In essence, with the dynamic nature of delivery in sport and M A N U S C R I P T…”

“…Despite its popularity, however, in a systematic review of choking interventions, Gröpel and Mesagno (2017) lamented the "somewhat inconsistent" (p. 15) findings for analogy instruction across the literature with some studies reporting significantly better performance under pressure conditions compared to explicit instructions (e.g., Lam, Maxwell, & Masters, 2009b;Liao & Masters, 2001), but others not finding such effects (e.g., Bobrownicki, MacPherson, Coleman, Collins, & Sproule, 2015;Schücker, Ebbing, & Hagemann, 2010). According to Bobrownicki, Collins, Sproule, and MacPherson (2018), these inconsistencies do not suggest that analogies are ineffective instructional tools, but rather that researchers must more carefully consider how such instructional tools are investigated in order to advance theory, better represent real-world behaviour and, consequently, inform applied practice.…”