When and How to Provide Feedback and Instructions to Athletes?—How Sport Psychology and Pedagogy Insights Can Improve Coaching Interventions to Enhance Self-Regulation in Training

Abstract

In specialist sports coaching, the type and manner of augmented information that the coach chooses to use in communicating and training with individual athletes can have a significant impact on skill development and performance. Informed by insights from psychology, pedagogy, and sport science, this position paper presents a practitioner-based approach in response to the overarching question: When, why, and how could coaches provide information to athletes during coaching interventions? In an ecological dynamics rationale, practice is seen as a search for functional performance solutions, and augmented feedback is outlined as instructional constraints to guide athletes’ self-regulation of action in practice. Using the exemplar of team sports, we present a Skill Training Communication Model for practical application in the context of the role of a specialist coach, using a constraints-led approach (CLA). Further based on principles of a non-linear pedagogy and using the recently introduced Periodization of Skill Training (PoST) framework, the proposed model aims to support practitioners’ understanding of the pedagogical constraints of feedback and instruction during practice. In detail, the PoST framework’s three skill development and training stages work to (1) directly impact constraint manipulations in practice designs and (2) indirectly affect coaches’ choices of external (coach-induced) information. In turn, these guide practitioners on how and when to apply different verbal instruction methodologies and aim to support the design of effective skill learning environments. Finally, several practical guidelines in regard to sports coaches’ feedback and instruction processes are proposed.

Manual Material Handling Training: The Effect of Self-Observation, Hetero-Observational and Intrinsic Feedback on Workers’ Knowledge and Behaviour

“…As regards the results of Backåberg et al [18,19], the present study complemented the SSO and HFF with promoting the intrinsic feedback. The aim of promoting the intrinsic feedback was to raise body self-awareness in order to make the employees capable of paying attention to their movements and self-correction, because after the training, they rely on their intrinsic feedback [26]. In this case, the HFF provided knowledge as regards ensuring that intrinsic feedback was being interpreted correctly.…”

“…The positive effects of self-observation, hetero-observational and intrinsic feedbacks have been widely studied in sport skill acquisition [20,25,26], even though there is a lack of studies on risk prevention and health promotion.…”

Specialist Coaching Integrated into a Department of Methodology in Team Sports Organisations

“…This yields stark contrast to the more traditional means of guiding the formation of synergies in athletes through augmented information prescribed by coaches and sport science support staff (imposed global sources of information driven from 'top down') [12]. Feedback and verbal instructions are two informational constraints, which have been over used in sports like football [15,16]. More recently, Woods and colleagues [11] criticised the over use of traditional prescriptive coaching methods, using the analogy of a global positioning system (GPS) which imposes a navigational route on an individual, suppressing opportunities for wayfinding.…”

Kaip patirta trenerio ir sportininko komunikacija veikia pradedančiųjų futbolo trenerių profesinę veiklą?

“…Futbolas -komandinis žaidimas, todėl komandos sėkmė priklauso nuo įvairių aspektų: komunikacijos, susitelkimo ir kolektyvinio efektyvumo. Komandų sporto šakose treneriai turi išmanyti skirtingas žaidėjų pozicijų roles ir atitinkamai sugebėti organizuoti bei vykdyti treniruočių procesą, žinoti, kada taikyti, ką išsakyti ir kaip pateikti instrukcijas siekiant sportininkų individualios ir komandinės sėkmės (Otte, Davids, Millar, Klatt, 2020).…”

“…Nors pastaruoju metu atliekama vis daugiau tyrimų apie sporto trenerių, taip pat ir futbolo trenerių, komunikaciją (Otte et al, 2020;Zulakbal et al, 2018), tačiau pasigendama tyrimų, analizuojančių, kaip trenerio komunikacija, jo kuriamas sportinės veiklos klimatas veikia sportininkų, pasirinkusių sporto trenerio karjerą, profesinę praktiką, kaip vyksta pradedančiųjų futbolo trenerių mokymasis per patirtį, kaip ši patirtis įsilieja ir padeda jiems formuotis sėkmingai trenerio veiklai reikalingas kompetencijas. Tyrime nuspręsta koncentruotis į pradedančiųjų futbolo trenerių sportinės veiklos patirtis, nes dėl mažos praktinės profesinės veiklos patirties, tikėtina, jie dažnai remiasi savo kaip sportininko patirtimi apie treniravimo procesą, nors trenerių mokymasis, anot P. Werthner ir P. Trudelio (2009), vyksta nuolat ir įvairiais būdais bei aplinkybėmis.…”