HOW TACTICAL KNOWLEDGE AND COGNITIVE SKILLS DEVELOP WITH EXPERTISE

Several studies have examined players’ tactics in a variety of sports and performance contexts.

Before findings from these studies are considered, it is important to address the performance context, as tactics may vary according to type of sport, goals of the task, the situation, etc.

For example, in tennis, the ability to interpret an opponent’s serve tendencies may or may not lead to an accurate return of serve. Or, the decision to hit a forehand with topspin deep to an opponent’s backhand may or may not lead to the ability to successfully execute this shot. There is a difference, then, between being able to decide what to do, and being able to carry out the decision.

A framework for examining tactics and performance skills

In response to these issues, I developed a framework (see Figure 11.1) to describe the various types of sport and performance context that need to be considered when we examine players’

tactics and performance skills.

In Figure 11.1, the left-to-right arrow at the top represents the demands on the athlete, moving from response selection (decision skills) to response execution (motor skills) aspects of performance. Thus, in ball sports such as soccer or tennis, players need abilities in both areas of decision and motor skills. For example, in soccer you need to be able to decide that the best option is a shot on goal, and then be able actually to make that shot on goal. In contrast, in sports such as gymnastics or figure skating, players need abilities that primarily involve motor execution skills. A gymnast, for example, has a set routine to perform and does not need to make any major decisions to choose what actions to perform. Of course, the nature of the sport or drill context and player’s role (e.g. a goalie or forward) will influ-ence the demands on the athlete as well. For example, if a practice drill involves a prescribed shot then the player’s demands regarding shot selection are minimized.

Decision skills and motor skills also include two types of knowledge. One type is termed declarative knowledge and the other type is termed procedural knowledge (noted by two top-to-bottom arrows). Declarative knowledge is knowledge of what to do or how to do

something. Procedural knowledge is the ability to carry it out. The task carried out may be a decision or motor skill or both, depending on the demands of the sport or sport situation.

Thus, a coach examining a player’s declarative knowledge about decision skills (left side of the framework) might pause a video and ask a player, ‘would you pass, shoot, or dribble?’

to determine if this player understands what to do or how to make a decision in this situation.

This coach may continue to examine this player’s decision skills by observing her decisions in similar situations during practice drills or actual bouts of competition. In these latter situations, procedural knowledge is being assessed. Motor skills (right side of the framework) may be examined via a similar process. For example, a coach could ask a player to critique another player’s jump shot to assess her knowledge of how to do this skill. This coach could continue to examine her jump shot skills by observing her ability to execute jump shots during practice drills or actual bouts of competition.

To date, few observational tools have been developed to examine players’ accuracy of decisions during competition. One such instrument was developed for tennis and is presented in Table 11.1. Similar versions of this instrument have been developed for basketball, baseball, volleyball, and badminton. Another tool that has been used is to record players’ thoughts in these performance contexts. Typing out and later reviewing these thoughts have helped in assessing tactical knowledge and cognitive skills. Several suggestions on how to examine players’ tactical knowledge and cognitive skills will be presented later. Ultimately, players and coaches should collaborate to develop instruments that are user friendly and provide the type of information they desire.

What do we mean by tactical knowledge and cognitive skills?

In order to understand a player’s tactical knowledge and cognitive skills, it’s important to measure what they know about the sport, or their sport-specific knowledge base. Sport-specific knowledge bases can be thought of as a specialized system of units of information (or concepts) that are stored in long-term memory (LTM) and accessed when needed. Sport-specific knowledge may also contain cognitive skills that help us read a play pattern, predict a pitcher’s pitch, or gather and collect information about an opponent. For example, I may know that it is important to develop knowledge about my opponent’s behavior during competition. As a result, I will use a process of updating my ideas about this particular opponent’s tendencies 1111

knowing what to do Decision skills

knowing what to do

Recall tasks

Isolated drills

Competition

Figure 11.1

A framework depicting various levels of analysis and performance contexts in sports.

Table 11.1 Summary of the decision rules for coding components of tennis performance during the serve and game play following the serve

The serve

Control: Did the player gain and maintain control of the tennis ball?

Coded as 1: if the server stood close to the center mark and contacted the tennis ball that enabled selection of an action.

Coded as 0:

(a) if the server stood far from the center mark and served the ball to the opponent’s strong side or to the middle of the service court

(b) if the server served off balance and without control due to a poor toss.

Decision: Did the player make an appropriate decision in the context of a given situation?

Coded as 1: the selected action considered the player’s and opponent’s position:

(a) any attempt made to serve the ball with depth, spin, speed, or placement in order to force a weak return

(b) any attempt made to serve the ball to an open area of the service court due to the opponent’s position, into the opponent, or to the opponent’s weak side in order to force a weak return.

Coded as 0: a weak decision if the player made a poor decision in the context of a given situation. The selected action considered only the player’s position:

(a) if the server placed the ball in the court in a soft lobbing manner that allowed the opponent to return the ball offensively

(b) if the server attempted a first serve with erratic power, followed by a soft pushing second serve

(c) if the server did not attempt to serve to the open area of the court or weak side, which allowed the opponent to return the ball offensively.

Execution: Did the player execute the decision successfully?

Coded as 3: a serve that was successful and forcing owing to placement, speed, spin and/or depth that usually placed pressure on the opponent.

Coded as 2: a serve that was successful, yet not forcing owing to lack of placement, speed, spin and/or depth that placed little pressure on the opponent.

Coded as 1: an unsuccessful serve that was ruled long or wide.

Coded as 0: a netted serve.

Game Play

Control: Did the player gain and maintain control of the tennis ball?

Coded as 1: if the player contacted the tennis ball with the racket that enabled a selection of an action (stroke).

Coded as 0: Actions such as missing the tennis ball, illegal contact (e.g. body parts, carrying the ball) or inability to control the ball from an opponent’s good shot or the player’s poor footwork, which did not allow the player to select an action.

Decision: Did the player make an appropriate decision in the context of a given situation?

Coded as 1: a strong decision was coded as selection of an appropriate action (offensive or defensive) according to the player’s position, the opponent’s position, and the position of the ball. The action usually placed pressure on the opponent, which forced the opponent to move (e.g. sideways, up or back), to play the weak side (e.g. placing the ball to the player’s backhand), and/or to stay behind the baseline (e.g., placing the ball deep); also, if the action enabled the player to recover position (e.g. a defensive lob).

by watching how they behave in certain game situations. In this manner, I create a profile of my opponent that I can update. Of course, if I have created a player profile before and done this often enough and I have been exposed to a variety of opponents, my ability to develop a profile about a player’s behaviors is more efficient and effective compared with other players’

who don’t have experience doing this.

Also, only a portion of a player’s sport-specific knowledge is typically used during problem solving or task performances. For example, a beginner may be concerned with several general goals to get the ball over the net (e.g. ‘hit it over’, ‘keep it in bounds’) between a point during competition with minimal regard for anything else. Thus, to this player, this situation is represented as a limited set of goals. In contrast, a more advanced player may be concerned with selecting a variety of shots based on more specific goals such as keeping his/her opponent behind the baseline, and involving more detailed information such as player and ball locations, and the tendencies of his/her opponent. Thus, to the advanced player, this situation is represented as a set of specific goals with a variety of solutions that make use of the current context and knowledge about an opponent. The performance context and goal of the task may also influence the type of tactical knowledge and cognitive skills utilized by players. For example, a penalty kick drill in soccer might allow a player to focus only on aspects of executing this skill with minimal regard for a goalie if the drill does not include one. In addition, some players may elect to achieve goals other than those defined by the coach or context. To explore these issues, Thomas, McPherson, and French and their colleagues examined players’

thought processes (via audio recordings) in a variety of performance contexts. This illustrates the knowledge they are using as they perform. Each player’s thoughts are examined according to the concepts that they are linked to. Five major concept categories are used to show what 1111

(a) a weak decision was coded as selection of an inappropriate action according to the player’s position on court, how much angle was available, and the opponent’s position on court (e.g. a groundstroke returned to the opponent at the net without any attempt to pass, lob or use other strokes that placed pressure on the opponent), which usually allowed the opponent to play an aggressive shot.

(b) Selection of an appropriate action but only within the context of the player’s position with the goal of putting the ball ‘in play’, without consideration of the location of the ball and/or the opponent’s position. This action usually allowed the opponent to return the ball with minimal effort.

Execution: Did the player execute the decision successfully?

Coded as 3: a forcing shot that usually moved the opponent (e.g. playing to the opponent’s weak side) and placed pressure on the opponent forcing a weak return.

Coded as 2: a shot that placed little pressure or non-forcing actions on the opponent (e.g. the opponent had the opportunity to set up a strong return with minimal effort).

Coded as 1: a forced error that consisted of a point lost as a result of the opponent’s good shot.

Coded as 0: an unforced error that consisted of a point lost as a result of the player’s mistake rather than the opponent’s good shot.

players are thinking about as they perform. Players can use goal concepts, condition concepts, action concepts, regulatory concepts, and do concepts. These categories are important for coaches to understand because they reflect the nature of players’ tactical knowledge and cognitive skills.

When players’ thoughts are categorized as using goal concepts, they are thoughts that reflect the means by which the game is won, or the purpose of an action selected, or an objective referring to the game’s goal structure. For example, in tennis, phrases such as ‘win the point’ or ‘keep the ball in bounds’ reflect the games goal structure or means by which the game is won.

Other phrases such as ‘keep my opponent behind the baseline’ may be linked to specific actions to accomplish this goal such as ‘hit my groundstroke deep to his backhand’. Players use condition concepts when they identify that they are in a particular situation or circumstance or talk about when or under what circumstance to apply an action or patterns of action to achieve the goal. Condition concepts may reflect explicit cues available in the game environment or implicit cues available through tactical analysis and/or retrieval from LTM (e.g. in tennis, player’s own strength or weakness, opponent tendencies). For example, a tennis player may use the explicit cue of an opponent’s position on the court, stating, ‘If she stays back on the baseline, then I will stay back’. The same player may also use an implicit cue by remembering that she has a strong serve, and her opponent has a tendency to hit to her forehand as she approaches the net.

Action concepts specify an action selected or patterns of actions that may produce goal-related changes in the context of a sport situation. Action concepts may reflect motor executions such as hitting a forehand down the line in tennis, or moving to the net, or be about perceptual responses such as watching a racquet contact point. An example of a player statement that shows the use of an action concept is, ‘I sliced it crosscourt deep’. Regulatory concepts reflect the athlete monitoring the results of their actions and specify whether or not an action was carried out (e.g. ‘my serve went into the net’). Do concepts specify how to perform an action (e.g. ‘I need to toss the ball higher when I serve’).

Once a player’s concepts are identified, they can be examined for breadth (total and variety) and depth (detail) as well as linkages to other concepts. Although these measures allow us systematically to analyze the type of knowledge and cognitive skills players utilize during competition for research purposes, a rough version of this system can easily be applied by coaches and players as well. Ideas about how to do this are presented later.

WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH TELL US ABOUT HOW ATHLETES