Performer In The Autonomous Stage Of Learning example essay topic

Abstract This project investigates whether an audience has an effect on basketball players when shooting free throws. This project also considers how much effect there is and what the effect is, depending on the stage of learning of the participants. To investigate the hypotheses, 15 participants were chosen and placed into either a cognitive, associative or an autonomous group depending on their basketball ability, (this was determined using a questionnaire). Each participant performed 5 free throws with no audience, 5 free throws with an audience shouting positive comments and 5 free throws with an audience shouting negative comments. The tests were carried out indoors, the tests were varied so that some participants performed in front of the positive audience first and some performed in front of the negative audience first. The results that were gathered from the tests showed that the audience effected all participants, but the way in which they were effected was different.

The audience negatively effected the cognitive and associative groups even when the audience were shouting out positive comments. However, the autonomous group were effected positively by the audience no matter what they were saying. The conclusion of this project is that an audience positively effects a performer in the autonomous stage of learning when performing free throws and negatively effects a performer in the cognitive and associative stage of learning. Introduction In this piece of coursework, I will be trying to test how athletes perform in front of an audience. The task the athletes will be performing are free throws from basketball. It is noticeable in sporting situations that some athletes perform better under pressure than others and some 'crack' under the pressure.

In my piece of coursework, I will try to see what the effect of an audience has on performers of different abilities shooting free throws. There are also other factors, which effect the performance of a player. These are arousal, task being performed (gross / fine), the stage of learning (cognitive / associative/ autonomous), the personality of the performer (introvert / extrovert) and what the comments from the crowd are (positive comments / negative comments). These factors can all have an effect on a performer.

The factors I will be implementing in this piece of coursework are the task being performed, the stage of learning and the comments from the audience. Arousal A definition of arousal is, "Arousal can be defined as being a general mixture of both the physiological and psychological levels of activity that a performer experiences; these levels vary on a continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement". (Sport & PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study). This means that there are two extremes of arousal, under arousal where you are likely to fall asleep and are not alert. In addition, over arousal, where you are less likely to concentrate on the task at hand. Therefore, the best type of arousal would be somewhere in between, the optimum arousal.

For the athlete to do well and have a good performance they would have to be slightly aroused, "Research has shown over and over that the best performances occur when you are just slightly above your normal state of arousal, not at the extreme end as once thought". (Peak Performance by Karlene Sugarman, MA). What Karlene Sugarman is referring to is the drive theory and inverted 'u' hypothesis. In 1943 research was carried out by Hull and was later modified by J Spence and K Spence in 1966 (Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study).

They believe that the relationship between arousal and performance is a linear one. So what Hull, Spence, and Spence believed was that the more a sports performer was aroused the better they would perform. However Karlene Sugarman is saying that there is not a direct linear relationship, this brings us to the inverted 'u' hypothesis. The inverted 'u' hypothesis, which was suggested in 1908 by the Yerkes and Dodson Law (Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study), suggests that tasks that are more complex be performed better when arousal is low, and simpler tasks are performed better when arousal is high. This theory recognises that there are different types of arousal, as mentioned before, over and under arousal. The theory shows that the relationship between arousal and performance is curvilinear, therefore the inverted 'u's have.

The performance is said to improve up to a certain point of arousal; after this point, which can also be referred to as the optimum arousal, performance begins to deteriorate. In the case of this experiment, the athletes will be motivated to shoot free throws to the best of their abilities. Arousal is not a factor being tested. Task being performed The actual task being performed will be effected by the way it is performed. A gross skill will involve the large muscles such as legs and arms and is usually associated with strength, endurance and power e.g. Running, jumping or kicking a ball. Fine skills will involve smaller muscles, these are usually associated with speed, accuracy and efficiency e.g. writing, painting and sewing.

However, both these skills can be applied to achieve the same results. In cricket, there are fast bowlers and spin bowlers. Both are hoping to achieve the same result, which is to get the batsman out. The fast bowler will use more bodily movements and more power to get the batsman out; he / she will be using the gross skill. The spin bowler will be using his / her fingers or wrist to achieve the spin on to the ball; he / she will be using a fine skill. In taking a free throw in basketball, both gross and fine skills are going to be used.

The gross skill will be the arms throwing the ball towards the basket, and the fine skill will be the fingers trying to guide the ball accurately to the basket. In addition, in relation to arousal, this will be seen as a more complex task so arousal should not be very high. Stage of learning (Cognitive / Associative/Autonomous) Whatever the stage of learning the performer is in, will effect the performance and the result. Fitts and Posner (1967) (Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study) came up with the three phases of learning, the cognitive phase, the associative phase and the autonomous phase. Cognitive Phase Associative Phase Autonomous Phase Beginner Highly Skilled The cognitive phase is the initial phase in the learning process, this is when the performer is faced with a new skill or set of skills to try and learn, the performer is told what he / she needs to learn e.g. how to kick the ball, how to hold the ball correctly. This phase of learning is relatively short.

The associative phase is also known as the intermediate phase or practice phase, this phase is much longer then the cognitive phase. The performer spends time in practising the new skill learned and rectifies any bad habits forming. In this phase basics have been learnt and are becoming consistent. The autonomous phase is where performance becomes automatic and is carried out easily without any sort of stress, and with little or any conscious control. It becomes automatic without the performer having to think of what they are doing. In this piece of coursework, the better athletes are expected to score more free throws then the other athletes.

The shooting of free throws should be automatic to them. Personality Many people believe that personality is a major factor in sporting behaviour. Many people believe that they can predict a team mate, opponent or a captain's behaviour due to their personality. This is a bit like stereotyping.

A definition of personality is, "Those relatively stable and enduring aspects of individuals which distinguish them from other people, making them unique but at the same time permit a comparison between individuals". This was said by Richard Gross '92 (Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study). In 1975, a psychologist called Eysenck came up with the personality dimensions; they are stable, neurotic, introvert and extrovert. The introvert / extrovert dimensions relate to how social / anti -social people can be.

The stable / neurotic dimensions refer to the nervousness and anxiety that a person is susceptible to. An extrovert needs a higher level of arousal to be more alert and to concentrate; they can be easily bored. Extroverts are said to achieve optimum performances at higher levels of arousal and in team-orientated games or those involving gross skills. Introverts have high levels of excitation naturally occurring, they are highly over aroused. Therefore, they do not need any extra stimulation for them to perform at an optimum level. In the case of this experiment, the more confident players who have a more outgoing personality will be expected to be more aroused to get free throws that are more accurate.

The introverts will not need that much more stimulation and will be expected to try there hardest in all their attempts. Crowd Comments Sport is rarely carried out in total isolation. Usually there is somebody else's presence and this can effect a performance, .".. an audience impairs the acquisition of new responses and facilitates the emission of well learned responses... ". (Zajonc '65.

PSYCHOLOGY- The science of Mind and Behaviour by Richard Gross). What Zajonc is saying is that the audience will hinder the performance of a novice athlete and will improve the performance of an expert athlete. This is because there is an instinctive response in the presence of an audience, arousal levels increase and up to a certain level, arousal makes performance reach its optimum (inverted 'u'). However, complex tasks being performed with an audience watching are more likely to be performed incorrectly, and more errors are made. Zajonc proposed that whenever social facilitation occurred, and the level to which it occurred, all depended on what the nature of the task being performed was. He said that a presence of an audience, no matter how big it was increased the arousal of a player.

So a state of high drive in the presence of an audience is more likely to increase the number of mistakes made, especially by inexperienced or beginners, this increases anxiety which in turn further increases arousal. In 1982, Bond came up with the 'self presentation theory' (Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study). He suggested that the main aim of a performer in front of an audience is to look good when playing. When easy tasks are involved this is no problem, but when tasks get more difficult, they are faced with two problems.

The first is the complexity of the task; the second is of their awareness that when mistakes are made the audience is seeing it. When the highly skilled players are shooting free throws, even if a free throw does not go in the audience should not effect them or they will be in a positive way. The novice players will be effected though. There are two hypotheses I will be testing, they are: H 1: The audience will positively affect the more skilful players.

H 2: The audience will negatively affect the less skilful players. In addition, there are two null hypotheses, which are: NH 1: The audience will have no effect on the more skilful players. NH 2: The audience will have no effect on the less skilful players. Method Apparatus / Equipment Fifteen participants (Five in the cognitive phase, five in the associative phase, five in the autonomous phase) all male and between 17-20, An audience A basketball An indoor basketball court with basket. Five helpers Method A pre test was implemented first using three participants performing lay ups.

The results showed that more participants were needed and that the results were very similar for the three participants. Therefore, it was decided that fifteen participants would be used and they would perform free throws. Fifteen participants were chosen, A 1-A 5 are the cognitive participants, B 1-B 5 are the associative participants and C 1-C 5 are the autonomous participants. The participants's tage of learning was determined using a questionnaire.

Each participant is required to shoot five free throws with no audience watching. The results will be recorded with a 1 if the ball goes into the basket and a 0 if the ball does not go into the basket. After a shot has been taken, the ball is passed to the participant so they do not have to move from their position. After the participants have performed the free throws with no audience, an audience will be brought in. Participants are not allowed to watch other participants at all times, even when there is no audience, and are requested to leave and to sit in the changing rooms where someone is going to be sitting with them making sure they are not allowed to talk to each other. The audience is placed behind the basket so that they will be sitting directly in front of the performer.

The audience is asked to shout out positive comments to the participants. The audience is told before hand what they are allowed to shout towards the participants. The participant come out one by one and after completing their free throws they go back to the changing rooms and the next participant is asked to come out and perform his free throws. The first two participants from each group come out so the participants A 1-A 2, B 1-B 2 and C 1-C 2 are all performing in front of the audience which are shouting positive comments towards the participants. Next, the audience is asked to shout out negative comments towards the participants. As before the participants come out one after each other, but the remaining participants come out and perform so it will be participants A 3-A 5, B 3-B 5 and C 3-C 5.

They all perform in front of the audience shouting negative comments. After their results have been recorded, the participants A 1-A 2, B 1-B 2 and C 1-C 2 are asked to perform in front of the audience once more. The audience is still shouting out negative comments towards the participants. Again the participants are asked to come out one after each other and the results are recorded. The audience is then asked to shout out positive comments for the participants A 3-A 5, B 3-B 5 and C 3-C 5. The results are recorded one last time.

The reason for this is to make it a fairer test. This is also known as a repeated measure. The variables that are being implemented are the comments from the audience and the stages of learning the participants are in. The variables that are being controlled are the basketball, the size of the audience and the environment as the free throws are being taken indoors so weather is not going to be any effect.

Questionnaire (Please delete appropriate) What is your name? ... Male / Female How old are you? Have you played basketball before? Yes / No If yes, have you played for or do you still play for a team? ...

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being excellent. How would you rate yourself as a basketball player? 10 Would you like to participate in an experiment? Yes / No Discussion The results obtained from the experiment are valid because they show that the experiment worked. The method could be improved if the entire participant were asked to repeat their free throws.

In addition, a factor, which could have effected the results, was the motivation of the performers. The performers may not have been very anxious to perform well or may not have put all their effort into their performance. In reference to the results gathered and the way the method was implemented, both have been accepted. This is because the test was to set out and see how performers were effected by an audience, and the results show that what was set out to be tested were recorded in the results. The method is reliable in that it can be implemented again and the same variables can be controlled.

The results recorded show that the audience effects the less able players, therefore supporting the hypothesis that the audience effects less able players negatively is correct. The less able players were effected negatively even when the audience was shouting out positive comments. The more able players performed better in front of an audience than without. They scored all their free throws in front of a positive audience.

The hypotheses are accepted that an audience will positively effect the more skilful player and that an audience will negatively effect a less skilful player. This is because in this experiment only a small sample was measured from the whole of the population. From this experiment, there does not seem to be any anomalous results, but this may not be the case if a bigger sample of performers were tested. The phases of learning of the participants show that the beginners have many different results varying from participant to participant. The maximum amount of baskets that went in for a participant in the cognitive stage was eight and the least was two. In the associative stage the highest is seven and the least is six, this shows that the results are becoming more similar but they are only getting in just under half the baskets in from free throw opportunities.

In the autonomous stage, the maximum is fifteen and the least is thirteen. This is not that much of a difference considering that fifteen is the maximum amount of baskets that can be scored. The results were performed in the expected way because the more skilful players found the free throws easier to perform and the performance was more natural to them. (Fitts and Posner 1967. Sport and PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study). For the other performers, they had to spend time and think about what they were doing.

The results show that players with a better ability perform better under pressure situations. Referring to the stages of learning and the crowd comments, the participants did as expected. The participants in the cognitive stage were aware of the audience looking at them and this could have caused them to not do very well, .".. an audience impairs the acquisition of new responses and facilitates the emission of well learned responses... ". (Zajonc '65. The cognitive participants could have got over aroused in front of the audience and this could have caused them to be over aroused when performing a complex task.

Conclusion From this experiment the more skilful participants performed better in front of an audience, and the less skilful participants did not perform as well in front of the audience. The hypotheses have been accepted as the results prove them correct. Appraisal There were not any problems when obtaining the results. The experiment could be improved if their personalities were involved, their motivation and if they were put into a game situation rather then just by themselves, this would give them more of an incentive because they could be playing as part of a team. Also different types of audiences could be used and the participants could be female instead of male.

In addition to the participants playing in a game situation, how they performed their free throws at home and when playing away could also be interesting in terms of results. This experiment measured only a very small sample of performers and so cannot be totally accepted; it supports the hypothesis but only shows a small sample of the total population. If a much bigger sample of performers were tested then the results may differ from the results found in this experiment. Then we can accept the results found from a bigger sample.

Also if the results found in the bigger sample were different to that of the results in this experiment, then the results from this experiment may be deemed as anomalous.

Bibliography

. Psychology for A Level, Mike Cardwell, Liz Clark, Claire Meldrum (Collins Educational). Sport & PE: A complete guide to Advanced Level Study by Sue Hartigan, Kevin Wesson, Nesta Wiggins, Graham Thompson (Hodder & Stoughton)... web.