Skill Acquisition: Guidance

Visual Guidance

This type of guidance involves demonstrating the skill for the learner to mimic.
Highly suitable during the cognitive stage of learning new skills.
This provides a holistic image of the skill, allowing a learner to understand what the complete movement looks like.
It could include demonstrations, videos, diagrams or written descriptions.
However, it might not be effective if the demonstration isn’t accurate, or the learner has difficulty in understanding or interpreting the visual cues.

Verbal Guidance

This type of guidance involves using spoken instruction to guide the learner.
Can be used to reinforce visual guidance, guiding attention to important elements of the action.
Useful for correcting performance during the associative stage of learning.
Effectiveness varies - too much information may overshadow the essential parts while too little might lack clarity.
The language used should be appropriate for the learner’s understanding.

Manual and Mechanical Guidance

These involve physically manipulating the learner or using mechanical aids to achieve the correct motion.
Manual guidance requires the coach to physically guide the learner’s movements.
Mechanical guidance involves equipment such as harnesses or floats to guide movement.
This kind offers a sense of safety and reduces the fear factor in learning new skills.
However, it may create an unrealistic feeling of the movement and may lead to over-reliance on the aid.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Guidance

Intrinsic guidance refers to the feedback a performer receives from their sensory organs when executing a movement. It’s the feel of the action.
Extrinsic guidance refers to feedback that comes from outside of the performer, such as from a coach.
Both are important in the learning process but in different stages and for different reasons.
Over-reliance on extrinsic feedback can hinder the development of intrinsic feedback mechanisms.

The Comprehensive Approach to Guidance

Most effective learning often occurs when different types of guidance are incorporated together effectively.
For example, a coach could demonstrate a skill (visual), explain key points (verbal), assist physically (manual), and then provide feedback (intrinsic and extrinsic).
Balancing various guidance methods ensures that learners can understand, feel and effectively execute the new skill