The Amount and Distribution of Practice

Question 1

What is overlearning? **

Answer 1

Continuation of practice beyond the amount needed to achieve a certain goal

Question 2

What kind of influence can overlearning have on an athlete? **

Answer 2

Research shows overlearning can positively influence on the retention of motor skill learning

Question 3

Overlearning applied to Dynamic Balance skills

Answer 3

participants who got 50% more practice did as well as participants who got 100% and 200% more practice

Question 4

Why would overlearning lead to poor learning?

Answer 4

1. continued practice of simple skills may cause learners to not engage in the appropriate amounts of cognitive effort
2. continued practice of the same movement can result in decreasing capability to transfer a movement variation. (indicating more practice variability is needed)

Question 5

Is overlearning/ amount of practice a variable that influences motor skill acquisition?

Answer 5

No, it interacts with some practice - related variable to yield optimal skill learning such as practice distribution

Question 6

Massed Practice

Answer 6

• Longer practice sessions and shorter rest in between sessions
• Longer practice trials and shorter rest between trials within each session

Question 7

Distributed Practice

Answer 7

• Time is distributed across many shorter sessions
• Shorter practice trials and longer rets between traisl within each session

Question 8

What is the focus on massed and distributed practice?

Answer 8

Focus is on relative amount of time for active practice for a trial and the rest between trials

Question 9

What type of practice better suits better learning results?

Answer 9

Distributed learning - better learning results when people practice skills in more frequent and shorter sessions

Question 10

Three hypotheses of why distributed practice sessions are better for learning

Answer 10

1. Fatigue hypothesis - massed practice is more physically tiring
2. Cognitive effort hypothesis - less effort, monotonous and boring
3. Memory consolidation hypothesis - time to form long-term memory

Question 11

Distribution of practice for intertrial intervals **

Answer 11

continuous skills - distributed schedules are more effective in promoting learning than massed schedules
discrete skills - massed schedules are more effective than distributed scheudles in promotoing learning

Question 12

Continuous skills

Answer 12

a cycle of movements with no clear beginning or end, repeated over and over again (running, cycling, swimming)
- best with distributed practice

Question 13

Discrete skills

Answer 13

one action consisting of several subroutines with a clear start and finish
- best with massed practice