Lesson video

Hello there.

I'm really glad you've chosen to join me here today for this lesson on Types of Guidance.

Now my name is Mr. Broome and I'm going to be guiding you through this lesson on Types of Guidance from the unit of work, Sports Psychology: Goal Setting, Guidance and Feedback.

Let's take a look, shall we? Okay, so by the end of today's lesson, you should understand in greater depth and be able to explain further the four different types of guidance that you can see on the screen there.

They're namely visual, verbal, manual, and mechanical.

Here are the keywords for today's lesson.

Generally these are definitions of those different types of guidance which should become much more familiar during the lesson.

And let's have a look at the structure of today's lesson where we're going to divide the lesson into four parts.

And in each part we're gonna delve deeper into one of those types of guidance.

And hopefully after each you'll come out with a much greater understanding of that type of guidance, starting, as you can see, with visual guidance.

But first of all, maybe a little explanation of what is guidance, for those of you who may be not sure.

Guidance is a way of helping somebody to learn something.

In our case, we're interested in how they might learn a skill in physical activity or in a sport.

And guidance is defined here as a way of conveying information to the person who's learning or the performer.

Visual guidance of course, is one of the types of guidance, but there are four that you're going to learn today, and I've got an icon here for each of them.

I wonder if you can match them with the icon.

So here we have, of course, visual guidance with the eye icon.

We have verbal guidance with the ear.

Manual guidance is represented by a pair of hands, and mechanical guidance is represented by those cogs and chains.

But right now we are focused on visual guidance.

Now visual guidance is when the learner is shown how to perform a skill.

It's something they see.

Types of visual guidance which you are probably quite familiar with, well, here's one, a coach demonstration, or let's say a PE teacher demonstration.

I imagine that you've been in a PE lesson where the teacher has gathered all the class around them and from that position has then demonstrated a skill and you are expected then to go away and try to perform the skill yourself.

Most of us will have been in that situation.

Other ways that we can see guidance and see how to perform a skill could be watching somebody else.

It could be somebody in your class, it could be somebody in a team that you go to watch.

It could be somebody on TV, but you see how they perform something and then you try to replicate that.

That's another way of seeing the guidance, visual guidance.

Other ways might include photos, diagrams, drawings or videos.

Essentially, these are all still things that you can see, even if it's not somebody doing it live in front of you, but they're ways of seeing the guidance and understanding how to perform.

So let's have a look at some practical examples.

I've got some examples here, starting with a yoga instructor.

What you can see there is the yoga instructor sat at the front facing the class, demonstrating, in this case, a stretch, and the class are following what she is doing.

So she's guiding them visually.

Quite a different example here is this young basketball player is learning from the coach who's using a diagram on a clipboard to show them perhaps how or where the skill should be performed.

And finally, a one-to-one situation here with a youngster learning from a coach who's literally showing them with their body how perhaps a batting skill, I would imagine, should look when it's performed.

All types of visual guidance.

Here's a quick check for understanding.

Which of the following, A, B or C is an example of visual guidance? Now A is using a float when you're swimming.

B is hearing some feedback from your PE teacher.

And C is watching a coach perform a demonstration.

Which is a visual guidance example? Very well done if you said C.

Because the keyword there is that you are watching the coach perform a demonstration.

The other two examples didn't include something that you can see.

So each of these types of guidance we look at today have their own advantages and their own disadvantages.

They have times where it would be the perfect type of guidance to use and others where perhaps you shouldn't be using them.

A key skill for you is going to be the ability to analyse a situation and say what type of guidance would suit that situation best.

And so we're gonna look at these advantages and disadvantages.

Now, advantage of visual guidance is that if you do have a great big group of people who you're trying to guide, just like the example we had earlier perhaps of the PE teacher, a great thing is being able to gather them all and show them all the same demonstration at the same time.

It's a great time saver for the teacher.

Imagine if they had to go to every individual learner in the class and give them each an individual demonstration.

That would take a long time.

Another great example of visual guidance is that it gives you a mental image that you can go away and copy.

You can still remember what that demonstration looked like even when you go away and try and replicate it.

So whenever you are thinking, "What did that look like?" You will have that mental image in your head that you can try and copy.

Now, a disadvantage of using visual guidance is when the demonstration itself isn't particularly good.

If it's inaccurate or uses poor technique, chances are all the people who saw that technique will go away with their mental image of that incorrect technique and replicate also an incorrect technique.

So demonstrations are great, but only when they're actually good demonstrations.

Another disadvantage of visual guidance can be that if you only use visual guidance to explain or to guide a learner.

What might happen is that, especially with something that's really difficult, is that the learner might see it and just be like, "Wow, that's so much happened there.

I don't really understand what was going on." And so it might be that visual guidance can just be a little bit too much or there can be too much information in a very quick period of time for the learner to actually understand what's going on, especially if they're at the beginning stage of learning.

Quick check for understanding.

Is this statement true or false? An advantage of visual guidance is that it can be seen by lots of learners at the same time.

Okay, that statement is true.

Again, we go back to that example of the PE teacher showing everybody a demonstration.

Why is it true? Because it saves time.

That's a great advantage to the person who's trying to give the guidance, isn't it? And a second true or false statement here.

Visual guidance is always a suitable method of guidance in skill learning, always being the keyword there.

Okay, in this case, and well done if you said false.

In this case, visual guidance isn't always the most suitable method of guidance.

Because visual guidance, if there's nobody to demonstrate, may actually end up leading to incorrect technique being performed by the learners.

And demonstrations alone might be too complex, especially with beginners.

So it's not always a suitable method of guidance even though it is a very useful one in many occasions.

Here's your practise task.

Here's Jun and Jun plays for an elite hockey team.

Now elite is a keyword there.

Explain two reasons why Jun's coach might choose to use visual guidance in their team training session.

So two reasons why this elite hockey team, their coach is going to choose to use visual guidance.

Pause the video here, write down your two reasons and I'll see you in a moment with some suggested answers.

Okay, let's take a look at some of the things you might have said.

Hopefully you've got something similar to the answers that I have for you here.

Okay, so you might have said, well, the coach might have a big squad of people that he needs to demonstrate to at the same time.

And so visual guidance would be ideal for that.

The coach might want to provide his team with a mental image for them to go away and copy.

Maybe even they're going to go away and copy it after the training session during the week.

So by showing them how to do it, the coach hopes that they can keep that mental image and go away and practise it, maybe at home.

The coach could perform demonstrations that are accurate.

So if the coach has that confidence in their own ability to perform accurate demonstrations that are actually going to lead to good learning, then that might be why they choose to use visual guidance.

And finally, elite was a keyword, wasn't it? So Jun's clearly experienced in playing hockey.

And experienced players or elite players, they can understand the complex demonstrations because they've seen so much of the hockey skills that they will see it and understand it a lot better than a beginner might.

Well done if your answers were similar to mine.

Now we're going to move on to our second type of guidance, and that's verbal guidance.

And you'll see here that the verbal guidance icon is an ear.

It's an ear because this is when people receive guidance from people who are speaking to them or giving them verbal instructions.

So words you've probably come across before.

Sports coaches are giving verbal guidance all the time.

I'm sure you can picture a coach or a manager on the side of the pitch during the game, shouting instructions to their team.

Here's some examples of verbal guidance.

I've got a picture here of a group of players surrounding their coach while that coach gives them a team talk.

Could be before the game, couldn't it? It might be after the game, debrief, or it might be in a break in the game like halftime.

But what's clear is that she's giving them instructions verbally, perhaps telling them what they're doing well or perhaps telling them what they need to do better.

And in a very similar picture, but in a one-to-one situation here, we have another baseball image, don't we? And what's clearly happening here is that the coach is talking to the young learner there, giving them some guidance, perhaps giving them some motivation, helping them understand how well they're performing.

So a quick test for you.

Which of these pictures here shows an example of guidance, A, B, or C? Take a good look.

Well done if you said A.

A is a very similar picture to the previous slide.

A shows a coach talking to the players, probably telling them how well they're performing, maybe giving them some motivation but verbally.

Whereas in picture B, we don't see any verbal guidance happening, and in picture C, we don't see the coach guiding the person verbally.

So again, when is verbal guidance a good thing? When is verbal guidance not necessarily the best type of guidance to be using? Let's have a look.

Some of the great things about verbal guidance are that they can be delivered really quickly and easily.

If you think about it, you could say some guidance without needing to set anything up, without needing to necessarily gather everybody around.

You certainly don't need any equipment.

You just use your voice and you say it quickly and easily.

This works really well with experienced performers because experienced performers tend to understand all the terminology, all the lingo that goes with their sport.

And so they can be told something from a coach and they understand it based on their experience.

Whereas perhaps with people in the earlier stages of learning, they might not really understand the terminology so well.

It's also a great way of checking with an athlete.

You can say to an athlete, "Do you understand?," or ask them a question and quite quickly you can get some feedback about whether they do understand what it is that you're trying to guide them towards.

On the disadvantages side, so verbal guidance has its advantages, but it can also be perhaps not the most suitable type of guidance in situations where the learner perhaps needs to see the skill being performed.

If you only use verbal guidance and you tell somebody how to perform something just by telling them but not showing them, they might not get that picture of what it's supposed to look like.

Also, verbal guidance, a lot of people tend to speak too much, perhaps give too much guidance because it's so easy and so quick.

And that can lead to information overload where there's too much information to process for the learner.

And finally, the learner may not understand the instruction.

Some instructions are too complex or too long to process all of it in one go.

And so we need to be careful that verbal guidance is short and sweet and really succinctly gets the message across.

Let's just have a check for understanding then.

Which of these is an advantage of verbal guidance? Is it A: possible information overload? Is it B: it works well with experienced performers who understand the terminology? Is it C: that the learner may not understand the instruction? Is it D: that the learner doesn't see the skill being performed? Congratulations if you chose B, that it works well with experienced performers who understand the terminology.

The other three examples there were actually disadvantages of verbal guidance, reasons we might not use it.

Here's a practise task for you.

Let's have a look at that picture there.

What we've got is a learner who is at the beginning stages of learning how to box with their coach.

Now, I would like you to describe three reasons why the coach here, only using verbal guidance, might not be effective in this situation.

That's key there is that they're only using verbal guidance.

Three reasons.

If you pause the video there, I'll see you on the other side with a few suggested answers.

Okay, so describing three reasons why only using verbal guidance might not be effective in this situation.

Let's take a look at some of my suggested answers, and hopefully you've got something that looks similar.

So you might have said, okay, this learner may not yet understand boxing instructions or terminology.

Boxing has a lot of its own language, and if the coach is using that language and the learner has never heard it before, that's just going to lead to confusion.

The coach may give too much verbal information, especially for somebody who's beginning.

Talking too much at them, giving them too much verbal guidance may well lead to information overload.

So he has to be very careful not to speak too much.

And finally here the learner, because they're at the beginning stage, they may benefit from other types of guidance more so than verbal guidance.

They might need to see what the technique looks like if they're going to understand what it is they're supposed to be doing.

They may need some visual guidance.

Well done if your answers are roughly in line with that.

Okay, then so time now to move on to our third type of guidance, which is manual guidance.

And I wonder if you could perhaps work out what manual guidance is quite as easily as you did with visual and verbal.

It's perhaps not quite so easy to guess.

So here we go.

When a coach physically supports the learner or moves the learner with their hands to help them learn how to perform the skill, that's what we call manual guidance and that's why the icon for manual guidance in this lesson was the pair of hands.

Here's some examples of manual guidance in sport.

Now we have a ballet dancer here, learning how to hold the correct position, and you can see her teacher there is moving her with her hands into the correct position.

A very similar picture here shows a fitness instructor helping somebody to make sure that they're using the correct technique as they lift the weights.

And my third example there of a gymnast who's walking along the beam, supported, physically supported by the coach while she does so.

So a quick check.

Which of these skills would most benefit from manual guidance at the beginner stage? Remembering that manual guidance means that the coach would be physically moving them into position or supporting them.

Is it A: our football example, B: the gymnastics example, or C: the jogging example? Okay, the answer here was B, so congratulations if you said B.

Let's think why that would be the case.

Well, most people learn to play football and learn to jog without the need for much support from a coach, if any.

It's very rare to see manual guidance used in jogging or in football.

However, with gymnastics, learners at the beginner stage generally don't have perhaps the strength or the skill level to perform complex moves like the guy is in that picture.

And so that's a much more likely scenario where we're going to need to use manual guidance.

So well done if you said B.

Here we go again, we are getting familiar with this table, aren't we? But this time we're going to look at some advantages and disadvantages of manual guidance.

So first of all, an advantage of manual guidance.

If we think back to the girl who's on the balance beam with the gymnastics coach, that's going to give her a lot of confidence to give that skill a try.

Those beams are quite high up and can be quite nervous having a go at that for the first time.

But having the coach with her hopefully gave her the confidence that she needed to give it a try, and that goes hand in hand with this reduction in danger.

Manual guidance is really good for reducing the danger of an activity.

The chance of falling off the beam when you're by yourself is quite high.

By being guided manually by a coach, like we saw in the picture, that girl is a lot less danger of falling off the beam now.

And what that does with the confidence increased and the danger reduced, it allows the learner to get a feel for the movement in a safe environment.

Okay, so that girl is learning what it feels like to walk along the balance beam, but in a safe environment where she feels confident to do so.

And how about some disadvantages to manual guidance? Well, first of all, too much manual guidance can lead to an over reliance.

Imagine that the coach is always, every time the girl tries to go on the balance beam, the coach is always there holding her hands.

She never gets the chance to do it independently.

She'll become reliant on that coach to be there every time she tries to perform the skill and never does it independently as it's intended.

And that again goes hand in hand with this, that the learner can become demotivated or frustrated if they never get the chance to do it by themselves.

If they're always being guided manually and they've never actually been able to do it independently, it can lead to a little bit of demotivation and they may not choose not to do the skill anymore.

And finally, some learners just won't appreciate the proximity of the coach while they're trying to perform the skill all the time.

They may not like being physically guided or physically held into a position, and so that might be a reason why people don't like manual guidance and why it perhaps shouldn't be used with certain learners.

Okay, a quick check for understanding.

We've got three people here.

We've got Laura, we've got Alex, and Jacob, and they're each making a statement about manual guidance and I want you to tell me if it's an advantage or a disadvantage based on what they're saying.

Okay, let's take a look at Laura first, shall we? So Laura says, "I don't like having the coach so close to me when I'm practising ." Is that an advantage or a disadvantage of manual guidance? In Laura's case, this is a disadvantage.

She doesn't like the idea of having the coach in such close proximity, and so that is one disadvantage.

Alex says, "I like how I can learn to handstand with the coach.

I'm not worry about getting hurt." Advantage or disadvantage? This time, it's an advantage.

Alex likes having the coach there because he feels that reduction in danger gives him perhaps a bit of confidence to be able to try hand standing and not worry about getting hurt.

Finally, Jacob, "The coach has been helping me handstand for years now.

I don't feel like I'm making any progress." Advantage or disadvantage? So in Jacob's case, this is a disadvantage, isn't it? Of manual guidance.

Jacob is getting frustrated and perhaps demotivated because he's not making the progress and perhaps wants to be able to handstand by himself without the coach's guidance.

And so this is one of those occurrences where people might get to the point where they don't want to continue practising the skill because they feel like there's an over-reliance on the coach and the manual guidance.

Well done if you said the correct answer for all three of those.

Here's a practise task for manual guidance.

Here we have a coach, similar picture as we've seen before.

He's manually guiding somebody to use the correct technique.

And I want you to think about three factors a coach might consider before they use manual guidance with a learner.

What's going through their mind when they choose or choose not to use manual guidance? Pause the video here, write down your three factors and I'll see you in a moment with some suggested answers.

Okay, reasons a coach might consider before they use manual guidance.

Here's some of the things you might have said.

Check your answers.

They might have considered how experienced is the learner at this skill? If they're at the beginning stage, then chances are manual guidance might suit them, whereas those at the, perhaps more experienced end of the learning scale maybe don't need so much manual guidance.

How safe is the skill being learned? We looked earlier at jogging.

Jogging doesn't particularly need much manual guidance at all, if any, whereas something like learning the somersault or learning some tricky gymnastic skill might benefit from some manual guidance.

Does the learner need more confidence? The coach might judge whether that learner has the confidence to do something independently or whether manual guidance would be better for them.

Another factor might be that the question of has the learner been receiving manual guidance for a long time already? The coach might think, actually it's probably time they had to try independently of any manual guidance.

Or if they're only just beginning to learn, maybe manual guidance is suitable in that case.

Does the learner react well to manual guidance? We saw in our check for understanding test that Laura didn't like having manual guidance, she didn't like the proximity of the coach.

And so maybe if you are coaching Laura, you choose not to use manual guidance to make her feel uncomfortable.

How will it affect the learner's motivation? Again, is the learner going to benefit and feel motivated to learn the skill? Or is actually giving them manual guidance going to demotivate them from wanting to continue to learn the skill? That's something the coach might consider.

So well done if your three factors matched similarly with something I've written there.

And we are moving on to our final type of guidance, which is mechanical guidance.

And the icon here is some cogs and a chain because it really represents a very different type of guidance because this time we're talking about guidance using equipment or aids and not actually humans talking, showing, or physically guiding somebody.

In this case, there's often nobody else involved.

Here's some examples.

I'm sure lots of you have been in this situation where you learn to swim or you've seen somebody learning to swim using a flotation device, maybe armbands, maybe a float that you hold, rubber ring around your waist, something that helps you stay afloat while you get a feel for the movement of what it's like to be in the water and swim, but in a safe way because you've got those flotation devices.

And perhaps this is something else you've done.

You've been on a trampoline and you've been strapped into a harness.

This is a very common example of mechanical guidance.

Okay, based on what you've heard already, is this statement true or false? That using a bowling machine to learn how to bat in cricket is an example of mechanical guidance.

Okay, that statement is true.

Now why is that the case? This is an example of mechanical guidance because it's a machine that feeds the ball to the batter.

In fact, the batter could be in the room with just the machine, practising how to bat, learning how to do the batting technique and nobody else is in the room.

Okay? It's completely mechanical guidance.

The final time we're going to have a look at advantages and disadvantages of mechanical guidance.

Now I wonder if this starts to feel quite familiar very quickly.

Let's look at some advantages of mechanical guidance.

It gives the learner confidence.

Taking again the example of somebody swimming in a swimming pool, but using flotation devices because they're new to swimming.

Now, swimming for a non-swimmer is clearly a very dangerous environment and perhaps not somewhere they would like to be without those mechanical guidance aids.

And so they have the confidence to try swimming because they know that they're going to stay afloat.

And that again, goes hand in hand with the idea of reducing the danger while we're learning the skill.

So the learner gets the feel for the movement, but in a perhaps a safer way that gives them more confidence.

Again, that swimming example, we're learning how to swim, we can feel how to swim, but there's no danger of sinking because those flotation devices are helping to keep us afloat.

Now, I said this might feel familiar.

I'm gonna show you some disadvantages also.

So disadvantages of using mechanical guidance is that it might become a little over reliant on that mechanical guidance, to teach them how to do the skill.

And if a learner is constantly using some sort of mechanical guidance, they might quickly become demotivated if they never get to try to do the skill without the mechanical guidance.

At some point they need to be able to have a try at doing it independently as perhaps the skill was meant to be performed.

And at some point, they've got to stop using that mechanical guidance.

Now, those five advantages and disadvantages should feel very familiar to you because they are almost identical to the advantages and disadvantages of manual guidance.

The reasons for using manual and mechanical guidance are very, very similar, and therefore the disadvantages of using both types of guidance are also very similar.

One of the further disadvantages of mechanical guidance is that certain types of mechanical guidance can be very expensive and perhaps out of the price range of certain people if they want to learn a skill but might not be able to afford the expensive piece of equipment that it takes to be able to learn it safely.

Let's check how much you understand.

So which of these might be good reasons to use mechanical guidance? Read carefully.

A: the activity is dangerous.

B: the learner is worried about getting hurt, or C: the learner is very experienced.

Okay, hopefully you notice that actually two of the answers there were correct.

If the activity is dangerous, it might be a chance to use some mechanical guidance to reduce the danger.

And if the learner is worried about getting hurt while performing this skill or learning the skill, then mechanical guidance might help to give them more confidence to give it a try.

Two answers were correct there.

And this is the final practise task of the lesson, and I'd like you to complete this table now.

Let's have a quick look at the table first because I've given you the first answer as a model answer.

So flotation devices in swimming are a type of mechanical aid, and the benefit to the learner, well, I've said that it allows the learner to stay afloat while practising the technique.

It removes the danger of drowning and increases the learner's confidence to be in the water.

I'd like you to write something similar about balanced bicycles, and there's a picture there, in case you're not sure what a balanced bicycle is.

It's essentially a bike without the pedals, and a trampoline harness, which we've already seen in today's lesson.

Complete the table with the benefits to the learner of those two types of mechanical guidance.

And I'll share some answers with you in a moment.

Pause the video here.

Okay, let's have a look at balanced bicycles and trampoline harnesses.

What are the benefits to the learner of using those types of mechanical guidance? Let's have a look first at balanced bicycles.

So not having the pedals and all that coordination that goes with using a bike, but still having the opportunity to practise the balancing of the bike helps the learner to get a feel for what it must be like to ride a bike, but it reduces the danger of them falling off because it's much easier for them to put their feet on the floor and stop the bike.

This will give them the confidence to enjoy riding and hopefully that will lead to them wanting to ride a real bike once they've got the confidence on the balance bike.

A trampoline harness.

Well, I said that the trampoline harness ensures the learner stays on the trampoline and it removes the danger of them falling off, and it would be very easy to fall off a trampoline when you're first beginning to learn the skills.

It can be used to learn moves such as somersaults because the harness allows you to do the somersault and if you, for some reason, performed it incorrectly, which is likely to happen when you're first learning it, the harness can stop them landing awkwardly and injuring themselves.

So it really reduces the danger, but still gives you the feel of what it's like to do the somersault.

If your answers are in a similar vein to that, well done, really good.

So let's just go through a summary of what we've learned today.

Guidance, in general, is a method of conveying information to learners.

Visual guidance, we've looked at, is where learners observe a demonstration or video.

It's something you see.

Verbal guidance involves instructing learners through the spoken word to improve their understanding, something you hear.

Manual guidance, assist movement physically, helping learners to feel the correct action.

A mechanical guidance, very similarly uses objects or aids to support learners in performing a skill correctly.

It's been a great pleasure to go through this lesson on guidance with you today.

I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you learned a lot, and I'll see you next time.