Athlete Learning: The Role of Pedagogy in Sport

The whole athletic development process is built on the learning process. Can the athlete take in new information and apply it to their specific situation? Can the coach teach the subject matter in a way that maximises the efficacy of the athletes individual learning?

The study of learning, pedagogy, is hugely overlooked in coaching practices. So much time and attention on things like coaching a catch position, underwater kick, or various other movements, but often it is not thought to take a step back and think how we are communicating the message. If you are coaching an athlete and have been for years, and you still need to reinforce basic points then your athletes have not learnt anything.

‘You have not taught until they have learnt’ – John Wooden

This is not always the coaches’ fault. Learning, cognitive or motor, is a two-way street. The coach must be extremely mindful on their learning strategies and communication skills, while the athlete needs to want to learn, putting in effort each training session and in their own time to reflect in order to retrieve previously learnt material to consolidate and reinforce the newly learnt information. 

The common learning strategy in classrooms, sporting environments, performance suites etc is massed practice. The single-minded and specific focus given to 1 skill that is rehearsed over and over again. This is a time consuming and short-term strategy with little benefit to long term learning. People like this strategy however because they feel they are learning well; it is why students do this before an exam to overload their brain with this material for a short term in order to get a good mark. Come back in a few weeks, however, and how much do they remember? Likely, not much. So, have they really learnt anything?

So let’s explore some less conventional ways to boost learning…

Spacing: allowing some time between practice sessions to allow the new information to consolidate in the brain and allow some forgetting to take place. This may sound counter-intuitive but, the more effortful the retrieval of previously learnt information the stronger the synaptic connections will be in the brain and the longer the learnt material will remain accessible.

Interleaving: mixing up your practice, learning to master multiple skills rather than focus on 1 specific aspect. This is a rather unpopular but incredibly effective learning strategy. It is unpopular because the learner often feels confused with different materials at once giving them a feeling that they are learning less than with massed practice.

Testing: the anxiety-producing word. Testing is an unreal tool for learning, but not in the way you might think. Testing as a form of assessment is, in our opinion, a waste of time and a poor measurement of what has been learnt giving the use of massed practice to store information in the short-term memory. Testing in a low stakes’ environment, or quizzing, is an excellent way to practice retrieval of older information and to assess the weaker areas in one’s knowledge. Testing should be a tool to enhance learning, not just an assessment.

With improved pedagogical approaches and buy-in from athletes, the learning process can be enhanced to further maximise the development of your athletes.