Welcome to Sports Psychology: Skill Classification and Goal Setting
Have you ever wondered why kicking a football in a match feels completely different from kicking one against an empty wall in your garden? Or why world-class athletes focus on their technique rather than just winning a trophy? In this chapter, we explore how sports psychologists classify physical skills and how performers use goals to guide their training and competition. Don't worry if this seems new or challenging at first; we will break down each idea step by step with clear sporting examples!
Note: Later chapters explore related topics such as the basic information processing model, SMART targets, guidance and feedback, and arousal and motivation.
---Part 1: Skill vs. Ability
Before categorising different sporting actions, we need to understand the difference between skill and ability:
• Ability: The innate, natural foundation you are born with. Abilities are inherited traits such as balance, coordination, reaction time, or natural speed. You build skills on top of your abilities.
• Skill: A learned action or behaviour that you acquire through practice and experience. Examples include passing a hockey ball, performing a high jump, or executing a tumble turn in swimming.
Everyday Analogy: Think of ability as the foundations and frame of a house, while skill is the finished, decorated building created through effort and work.
---Part 2: The Four Skill Continuums (Classification of Skill)
In sport, skills are rarely 100% one thing or another. Instead, we place skills along a sliding scale called a continuum. A continuum has two opposite ends, and we place a sporting action along it depending on its characteristics.
According to the AQA specification, you must know four distinct skill continuums:
1. Basic vs. Complex Continuum
This classification focuses on how many decisions, subroutines, and pieces of information are involved:
• Basic skill: A simple movement requiring very few decisions, minimal information processing, and few parts (subroutines). It is usually easy to master.
Examples: Running, a simple chest pass in netball, or cycling in a straight line.
• Complex skill: A difficult movement requiring many decisions, high levels of information processing, lots of concentration, and many coordinated parts.
Examples: A high jump flop, a slip catch in cricket, or a tennis serve.
2. Open vs. Closed Continuum
This classification looks at how much the surrounding environment affects the action. The environment includes teammates, opponents, terrain, and the weather:
• Open skill: Performed in an unstable, constantly changing environment. The performer must make rapid decisions and adapt their technique based on what opponents or teammates are doing.
Examples: A pass in rugby during open play, dribbling past a defender in football, or returning a smash in badminton.
• Closed skill: Performed in a stable, predictable environment that is not affected by outside factors. The performer can carry out the skill the same way every time using a set routine.
Examples: A gymnastics vault, a shot put throw, or an archery shot.
3. Self-paced vs. Externally Paced Continuum
This continuum is all about control over timing — who or what decides when the action starts and how fast it happens:
• Self-paced skill: The performer decides when to start the movement and controls the speed and rate of execution.
Examples: A javelin throw, a penalty kick in football, or serving in tennis.
• Externally paced skill: The start and speed of the movement are dictated by external factors, such as an opponent, the referee, or the environment.
Examples: Receiving a tennis serve, marking an attacker in netball, or reacting to the starter's gun in a 100m sprint.
4. Gross vs. Fine Continuum
This continuum categorises skills by the size of the muscle groups involved and the degree of precision required:
• Gross skill: Involves large muscle groups (such as the quadriceps, gluteals, or latissimus dorsi) producing powerful, fundamental movements. Precision is less important.
Examples: A rugby tackle, kicking a football from defence, or shot put.
• Fine skill: Involves small, delicate muscle groups (such as those in the hands, wrists, and fingers) requiring high precision, hand-eye coordination, and control.
Examples: Putting in golf, throwing a dart, or releasing an arrow in archery.
Summary Table of Continuums
• Basic (few decisions) vs. Complex (many decisions)
• Open (changing environment) vs. Closed (stable environment)
• Self-paced (performer controls timing) vs. Externally paced (environment/opponent controls timing)
• Gross (large muscle groups) vs. Fine (small muscle groups, high precision)
Key Takeaway for Exams: Always state the classification and provide a justification linked to the context of the sport. For example, do not just write "a penalty kick is self-paced"; write "a penalty kick is self-paced because the kicker chooses when to begin their run-up."
---Part 3: Goal Setting
Athletes set targets to stay motivated, focus their concentration, reduce anxiety, and monitor their training progress. In sports psychology, goals are split into two major categories:
1. Performance Goals
• Definition: Goals focused directly on personal performance, technique, or standard, with no social comparison (you do not compare yourself to other competitors).
• Key Feature: The performer has direct control over whether they achieve the goal because it depends entirely on their own effort and technique.
• Examples:
- A 100m runner aiming to run under 11.5 seconds.
- A basketball player aiming to make 80% of their free throws in training.
- A swimmer aiming to improve their tumble-turn technique and push off with better streamline.
2. Outcome Goals
• Definition: Goals focused entirely on the end result, winning, or beating other competitors. These always involve social comparison.
• Key Feature: The performer does not have complete control over whether they achieve an outcome goal, because their success depends heavily on the ability and effort of opponents, weather conditions, or refereeing decisions.
• Examples:
- Winning a gold medal at the championship.
- Finishing in the top four of the league.
- Beating a rival school in a rugby match.
Combining the Two Goal Types
Top performers often combine both types of goals: an outcome goal provides long-term ambition (e.g. "I want to win the league"), while performance goals provide the day-to-day focus needed to get there (e.g. "I will complete 85% of my passes successfully in each match").
Why Beginners Should Avoid Outcome Goals
Exam questions frequently test this concept. Beginners should generally avoid outcome goals for the following reasons:
1. High Risk of Failure: Beginners are still learning basic skills and are likely to lose when competing against better performers.
2. Loss of Motivation: If a beginner focuses only on winning and loses, they may experience demotivation and drop out of the sport entirely.
3. Increased Anxiety and Pressure: Outcome goals place heavy pressure on the final result, which can cause over-arousal and poor execution.
4. Lack of Control: Beginners cannot control how good their opponent is, so their progress is best measured by personal improvement (performance goals).
Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Exam
• Mixing up open and closed with outdoor and indoor: Playing football indoors on a sports hall court is still an open skill because opponents and teammates are moving around you! Open/closed is about the predictability of the environment, not whether you have a roof over your head.
• Confusing performance goals with winning: If a goal mentions finishing first, winning a cup, or beating someone, it is an outcome goal, not a performance goal.
• Forgetting to give the reason: When asked to classify a skill in an exam question, you will usually get one mark for identifying the category (e.g. fine) and one mark for explaining why (e.g. because it uses small muscle groups in the hand to aim the dart accurately).
Quick Review Quiz
Test your knowledge with these three practice scenarios:
1. Classify a javelin throw along the gross/fine continuum and justify your choice.
Answer: Gross skill, because it requires large muscle groups (such as the legs, core, and shoulders) to generate maximum throwing power.
2. A tennis player aims to land 70% of their first serves inside the service box during a match. Is this a performance goal or an outcome goal?
Answer: Performance goal, because it focuses on a specific personal standard and technique without comparing the player to their opponent.
3. Why is a tackle in rugby classified as an open skill?
Answer: Because it takes place in an unpredictable, changing environment where the timing and direction of the tackle must adapt to the movement of the opposing ball carrier.