Representative Learning Design and Functionality of Research and Practice in Sport

Abstract

Egon Brunswik proposed the concept of "representative design" for psychological experimentation, which has historically been overlooked or confused with another of Brunswik's terms, ecological validity. In this article, we reiterate the distinction between these two important concepts and highlight the relevance of the term representative design for sports psychology, practice, and experimental design. We draw links with ideas on learning design in the constraints-led approach to motor learning and nonlinear pedagogy. We propose the adoption of a new term, representative learning design, to help sport scientists, experimental psychologists, and pedagogues recognize the potential application of Brunswik's original concepts, and to ensure functionality and action fidelity in training and learning environments.

Individual–Environment Interactions in Swimming: The Smallest Unit for Analysing the Emergence of Coordination Dynamics in Performance?

“…In the ecological dynamics framework, the notion of representative design shapes experimental and practice environments so that observations and acquired skills can be linked to emergent functional behaviours in a specific performance context [30]. Pinder et al [29] developed the concept of representative learning design to help sport scientists and coaches to create learning situations that integrate interacting constraints on movement behaviours. They pointed to a need to "adequately sample informational variables from the specific performance environments, and ensure the functional coupling between perception and action processes" (p.151) [29].…”

“…Pinder et al [29] developed the concept of representative learning design to help sport scientists and coaches to create learning situations that integrate interacting constraints on movement behaviours. They pointed to a need to "adequately sample informational variables from the specific performance environments, and ensure the functional coupling between perception and action processes" (p.151) [29]. The relevance of the concept was demonstrated in sports {Araujo:2007tz, Davids:2012wh}, for instance during dry-land dives form a springboard(see {Barris:2013ix}), or for the ball striking action in cricket.…”

“…Representative learning design describes the composition of practice task constraints that represent performance environment settings [29]. This conditions the acquisition or reinforcement of multi-articular coordination patterns that becomes strongly dependent on affordances design in practice tasks {Seifert:2016hz}.…”

“…We consider key concepts of ecological dynamics in explaining coordination dynamics during human aquatic locomotion and demonstrate how these ideas provide an appropriate theoretical rationale to investigate the individual-environment system. Finally, practical implications for coaches and swimmers are described, suggesting how they might functionally manipulate constraints to facilitate the emergence of appropriate behaviours during interventions, based on the principle of representative learning design [29]. This principle governs the design of practice tasks that faithfully simulate the constraints of a competitive performance environment [29,30].…”

The acquisition of pedagogical expertise in dance : a constraints-led approach

“…Davids (2012) argued that representative task design is predicated on the correspondence between constraints and the behavioural context, that is, constraints should be representative of the context where performance should occur. This idea is important with reference to learning (Chow, et al, 2011;Pinder, Davids, Renshaw, & Araújo, 2011) because it articulates the role of information as an adaptive process on individual's behaviour (Brunswik, 1956). In this case, however, Oscar's pedagogical learning appears not to have been guided by any of his teachers (either at university or in the dance company) because he did not report any relevant learning experiences faithful to the real-world, where he was supposed to teach.…”