ABSTRACT
Learning has been defined as ‘a relatively permanent change in performance resulting from practice or past experience’ (Kerr 1982). Kerr’s interpretation explains a great deal about learning and that performance is not truly indicative of learning. Most people have heard about beginner’s luck. The novice golfer who hits the ball straight down the middle of the fairway is likely to put the next shot out of bounds. Performance is ‘a temporary occurrence fluctuating from time to time: something which is transitory’ (Kerr 1982, p. 5), whereas athletes perform a learned skill ‘relatively permanently’ or consistently. When considering learning academic skills rather than sports skills, once a person has learned something they would not expect to occasionally get it wrong; yet when it comes to sports skills that is not the case. Maria Sharapova isn’t expected to get every first serve in the service court and it is generally accepted that Lionel Messi will not always hit the target. This is not because there are different standards for athletes compared to scholars; it is because of the difference between the nature of a sports, or psychomotor, skill compared to an academic skill. Academic skills are purely cognitive and rely on brain activation, but psychomotor skills require both activation of the brain and the body. As a result, there are thousands of interconnections between neurons, and connections between neurons and muscles and joints, when performing a psychomotor skill. Just think of how many joints, muscles and nerves are involved in a fairly simple task like throwing a ball. Getting just one small part wrong will affect the outcome. These nerves, muscles and joints are known as degrees of freedom – the more that are involved, the more likely the skill will go wrong. This issue will be discussed later in the chapter.
