Week 5: QMD

Question 1

Define Qualitative Movement Diagnosis (8 points)

Answer 1

• Definition - “The systematic observation and introspective judgement of the quality of human movement for the purpose of providing the most appropriate intervention to improve performance” (Knudson, 2013, p. 4).
• Observing and assessing a motor skill, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of that performance and suggesting remedies to improve the skill
• Qualitative movement diagnosis comes under a number of different labels such as:
  
  • qualitative assessment
  • skill analysis
  • qualitative analysis
  • qualitative skill analysis
  • QMD

Question 2

Describe the importance of QMD (3 points)

Answer 2

• QMD is vitally important to the teaching and learning of physical skills
• Arguably one of the most important competencies of a teacher of PE and Sport (Knudson, 2000)
• Coaches and teachers who are unable to perform qualitative movement diagnosis effectively are less likely to be able to get the most out of their athletes and students.

Question 3

Describe Knudson’s Integrated Model of QMD (10 points)

Answer 3

• One of the more prominent models that’s been used to identify the steps that occur in QMD.
• According to Knudson’s integrated model of QMD, there are four steps. Those steps are:
  
  • preparation
  • observation
  • evaluation and diagnosis, which is one step
  • intervention
• However there is also an arrow in the center of the model which points from the intervention step across to the observation step.
• This shows that after you’ve completed the first four steps, the last being the intervention step, you often need to move from the intervention step back to the observation step and continue the process again.
• Now the reason for this is you were only rectifying one fault at a time. Therefore, if the learner that you’re observing had multiple errors, even if you fix that first fault, there are possibly going to be other faults you will need to go back to and work on.
• Therefore you can argue that the model is very cyclical. You’ll need to move around the model and continue until you see that all the flaws have been rectified.

Question 4

Describe Preparation in Knudson’s Integrated Model of QMD (12 points)

Answer 4

• The first step in the integrated model
• This step relates to the importance of knowing what you’re teaching. This step is all about gathering relevant knowledge of the activity. The better your knowledge, the more effectively you’ll be able to carry out this task.
• Gathering knowledge can be achieved in a number of ways such as
  
  • Personal experiences performing the skill as an athlete or a competitor
  • Through knowledge gathered as a coach.
  • Consulting experts, experienced athletes or coaches
  • Research such as the latest quality literature, coaching manuals, textbooks
  • Comparing the skill to similar movements. An example of this might be someone who’s carrying out QMD on the tennis serve but may not be an expert on it. If this is the case, this person could compare the serve to the overhand throw because they’re very similar movements. So they can observe the serve and use their strong knowledge of the overhand throwing pattern to help them identify important aspects of the serving action.
• Probably one of the most important aspects of the preparation step is having a strong understanding of the critical components or critical features of the skill.
• This can be a bit challenging at times because different people have different opinions about critical components of different skills. To overcome this, it’s a good idea to do as much research as you can to help you decide what you think the critical components are.
• If you don’t know what the critical components of a skill are, then it’s going to make it really difficult to carry out effective QMD on that skill.
• It’s also a good idea to have a good understanding of what common errors that are often demonstrated by learners and athletes. Knowing that common errors will help you identify them efficiently and it will also help you rectify them when the learner you’re observing performs them.

Question 5

Describe Observation in Knudson’s Integrated Model of QMD (11 points)

Answer 5

• Second step of Knudson’s Integrated Model
• This step is the process of gathering, organizing and then giving meaning to the information about the performance. Essentially, this step is just about watching the performance.
• There are two main questions that are being asked during this step:
  
  • What to observe? This is the first question to ask. The answer is to observe the critical components to determine whether or not these components have been performed correctly or not. Once this is answered, you can move onto the second question.
  • How to observe? The answer this question is a little more complicated because most skills have a huge amount of information that’s presented each time that skill is performed.
• To overcome this complexity, it’s a good idea to have an observation strategy. One of the more prominent strategies is scanning the critical components in phases of the movement.
• Depending on the source of the information and the skill that you’re observing, there are different explanations for the phases of different skills. One example would be:
  
  • Preparation phase, which would be the setup or the stance for the skill.
  • Execution phase, which would be the hitting or the swinging phase, like striking.
  • Follow through phase would be the latter part of the hitting or throwing skills.
• So initially, the observation would focus on the critical components in the preparation phase. Then when the observer is ready, the observation focus would shift to the components in the execution phase. And then finally, when ready to do so the observation focus would shift to the components in the follow through phase.

Question 6

What makes the observation of a skill so difficult? (3 points)

Answer 6

• One reason is the speed at which these skills are being performed. Some skills are performed so quickly, it is difficult to accurately analyze these performances with the naked eye
• For example, the golf swing, over on throw, tennis serve, etc. They all happen at extremely high speeds.
• Best option would be to utilize video replays. Now by recording the performance you can watch the footage over and over as many times as you want. And you can view the footage in slow motion which makes analyzing the technique a lot easier. As a result, we can actually extend our observational power.

Question 7

Describe the components required for successful observation (7 points)

Answer 7

• When carrying out this observation, it’s advised that you control the environment to ensure that it’s kept realistic
• An example of this would be the different environmental factors of open vs close skills in basketball that would need to be considered.
  
  • A skill like dribbling is an open skill because it’s a skill that occurs in unpredictable and changing environment. And the performer has to react to that changing environment caused by the defenders adding defensive pressure. So when we observe the skill of dribbling, we should include defensive pressure so it’s realistic.
  • On the other hand, a skill like free throws is a close skill because it occurs in a stable and predictable environment where each attempt is self paced, and the shooter is going to have the same conditions from trial to trial. When free throw shooting happens in a game there is pressure, such as people standing around the key and shooters are often fatigued etc. So when we observe free throws, we want to simulate that pressure and fatigue. We could do this by performing free throws at the end of training and telling the players they need to make a certain number of free throws in order to finish the session.
• Make sure you view multiple skill performances, especially when you’re watching less experienced learners. The reason for this is because beginners are often very erratic in their performance. So from trial to trial, the performances will look very different. By watching more than one trial you’re more likely to get a better idea of what the learners strengths and weaknesses are.
• In regards to observations made in class or team settings, make sure that your back is to the wall. If your back is to the wall, you can be sure that there’s nothing going on behind you that you’re missing. It allows you to see the students or the athletes and it also allows them to see you.
• In addition, you need to be continually scanning the group even when you’re providing feedback to one of the students or the athletes. This scanning will ensure you don’t miss important information.

Question 8

Describe observation vantage point (6 points)

Answer 8

• An important consideration when observing is the vantage point or vantage points from which we should view the skills being executed.
• Now as a general rule, it’s a good idea to view at right angles to the plane of motion.
• So for example, when observing throwing technique, you can observe from side on, meaning you should stand perpendicular to the direction of the throw. And you want to be on the chest side of the thrower so that you can see all aspects of the throw.
• Some skills would require the observer to view from multiple vantage points because different vantage points will allow the observer to see different things.
• A good example would be observing a golf swing, the observer would want to view some swings from site on and other swings from behind the golfer. When during the swing from behind, you’d be able to see whether this swing is too flat or too steep. On the other hand, when your observation vantage point is from side on, you are more likely to see the golf is white distribution.
• When it comes to the distance that you should observe from the general rule of thumb is you want to view most human movements from between 5 and 10 meters.

Question 9

Describe Evaluation/Diagnosis in Knudson’s Integrated Model of QMD (15 points)

Answer 9

• Third step in Knudson’s integrated Model of QMD. There’s two parts to this step: evaluation and diagnosis.
• Evaluation is essentially evaluating or making a judgement about the quality of the movement. We do this by having a good idea of what we want to see in a high quality performance, which can act as a blueprint of a good performance.
• We can then compare what we see in the learners performance to our blueprint.
• In the process, we’re attempting to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the movement. So we need to make sure we’re not just focusing on what the athlete or the learner is doing wrong. We also need to make sure that we’re acknowledging the strength of the performance.
• So when we’re evaluating the movement, we need to be deciding whether or not critical components are being performed correctly. If they are being performed correctly, we need to acknowledge this by providing positive feedback to the learner.
• Once the evaluation has occurred, and we’ve identified the performance flaws, we then need to diagnose the situation and decide what type of intervention is needed to improve performance.
• This can be made challenging when there are multiple weaknesses. However it’s important to understand that most learners can only focus on one change at a time.
• If we overload the learner and try to get them to work on improving two or three weaknesses at the one time, they’re likely to suffer from paralysis by analysis. This is when the learner is overwhelmed because he or she is overthinking the changes that are needed and performance can actually deteriorate instead of improving.
• To avoid this, we need to decide what intervention is needed first, using a number of rationales to prioritize the interventions. This is known as intervention prioritization.
• Some of the rationales include:
  
  • maximizing improvement: when the intervention is selected because you think it will bring about the biggest improvement.
  • order of difficulty: when the intervention selected is going to bring about a nice and simple improvement. Now the improvement may not be massive. But it will be a quick and easy change.
  • correct sequence: when the intervention relates to an error that occurs early in the movement, often in the preparation phase. By fixing a fault early in the movement, it may actually help bring about other improvements to faults that occur later in the movement.
  • An example of this would be analyzing throwing technique and your evaluation identifies two flaws; one of the flaws is in the backswing and the other flaw relates to the trunk rotation. Using the correct sequence rationale you would attempt to fix the backswing flaw first, because the backswing occurs very early in the action. By fixing the backswing flaw there is a chance that your correction may also help rectify the trunk floor that you noticed early on.
  • critical features: when the critical component features are worked on first before then moving on and trying to fix minor variations in performance.

Question 10

Describe Intervention in Knudson’s Integrated Model of QMD (6 points)

Answer 10

• Final step in Knudson’s integrated Model of QMD.
• This step is when the teacher, coach or rehab specialist provides feedback or changes practice conditions to help learners improve performance.
• The intervention step has been given various labels such as feedback, remediation or instruction to performance.
• Interventions are not only limited to feedback; modeling may also be used. This is where a demonstration is provided, or a video is shown to the performer.
• Physical guidance is another option where the coach physically guides the performer so they get a feel for the movement. For example, a golf coach or a tennis coach guiding the learners club or racket so they get a feel for the swing plane.
• Another intervention option is modifying the equipment the learner is using. For example, a beginner learning to play tennis maybe struggling to make clean contact on his strikes. The coach may decide to give him a shorter racquet. This type of equipment modification has been shown to help learners in the early stages of their tennis development.