STUDY WEEK - GAME REPRESENTATIVE PRACTICE

                                         

This week I'll posting my notes from numerous studies that I've read over the last little while, of which I've done in some previous posts.

There's barely any of these studies specific to Aussie Rules Football but one's like these related to soccer and Gaelic football carryover easily.

They'll mostly be long (today is the shortest one) and disjointed as they're my notes taken based on my current level of understanding so it won't tell the entire story but if you find a nugget or 2 that takes your liking then here's the link to read up further on them, which also has various diagrams on study conditions etc that might be of interest

Handy hint- these study documents are great public transport trips.

• Game representation is enhanced by increasing opportunities for action
• Task decomposition fails for game representation
• Traditional practice is too static since in games players need to constantly adjust their decisions/actions to the changes in the environment
• Ecological Dynamics is all about the performer and environment relationship where there are plenty of  opportunities for action which is provides game representation
• Game Representation is the manipulation of task constraints via variation and degree of uncertainty
• In Futsal you need to perceive the location of the teammate who will receive the ball but also pass it with specific speed and direction, to satisfy the emerging opportunities of actions offered by the structure of the environment as opportunities to pass arise and dissolve, according to the spatial temporal relations between competing performers
• This study looked at the effect of manipulating the number of players action possibilities on the ball speed and passing accuracy where it was hypothesised that increasing the number of passing possibilities from a single predetermined location to an emergent passing task (ball carrier decides who will receive) would enhance similarity of ball speed characteristics and passing accuracy between practice and game conditions
• Passes were needed to be controlled easily by the receiver but also at the highest possible speed
• Each group did 2 trials in random pass order, had 5mins rest and then they played a Futsal match
• The increased number of passing possibilities decreased accuracy
• Predetermined passes revealed significantly higher regularity in levels of ball speed and in accuracy % of passing actions compared to emergent passing conditions in which there were more opportunities for action
• The numbers revealed that increasing the number of emergent passing actions offered in a practice task design was more representation of a game
• Variations in ball speed observed in condition 4 and the game revealed that players constantly changed their action to perform a pass with timing and weighting, required by game conditions
• Manipulating predetermined to emergent passes constrained passing behavior
• The competition between possibilities for action in emergent passes lead to more irregular variation in passing speeds which is probably due to the need to continuously change how the passes were made

Let me know your thoughts and/or any clarification you require on any of these points.