Classwork

Date
Lesson 3
By the end of this lesson you should be able
to:
 Understand the differences between ability
and skill.
 Exam questions usually look the
characteristics of ability
 Homework –Read how abilities developed?
Exam café questions 1-11 page 140

Characteristics of Ability
Innate/genetically determined
 Stable and enduring
 Support skills
 Abilities are seen as being building blocks
helping us to learn and develop skills.
 For example: to perform a handstand you
must have the strength in your arms to
support your body weight as well as the
balance to keep your legs above your head.

Definition of ability
 Schmidt
says that ability is ‘an
inherited, relatively enduring, stable
trait that underlies or supports various
kinds of motor and cognitive activities,
or skills. Abilities are thought of as
being largely genetically determined and
essentially unmodified by practice or
experience.’
Bull states:
are usually thought of as
stable and enduring traits that underpin
skills and contribute to the speed with
which individuals learn psychomotor
skills and to the quality of their
performance.’
 ‘Abilities
Task
 Take
one practical activity. List the
abilities required to become skilful in
this activity.

Explain why a performer cannot become
a very skilful performer without having
ability.
Psychologists differ in their opinion as to
whether abilities can be developed. It is
thought that abilities develop through
maturation (& degenerate through aging), are
modified through experience but are stable &
enduring.
 In other words, if you are born with low levels
of an ability you will be able to modify it
slightly but you will never have a high level of
that ability.

Types of ability
 It
should be stressed that different
psychologists use different ways id
identifying abilities, and different
terminology to describe them. There is
no definitive list of abilities.
Fleishman (1972)
 Who
developed a taxonomy of human
perceptual motor abilities; he identified
eleven identifiable & measurable
perceptual motor abilities; he also
identified nine physical proficiency
abilities (gross motor abilities)
Stallings (1982)
 Who
identifies abilities on the basis
that they have been identified by other
psychologists, can be developed &
assessed & are relevant to physical
education.
Two types of ability
Gross motor abilities e.g. dynamic strength,
static strength, explosive strength, stamina,
extent flexibility, dynamic flexibility, gross
body co-ordination, gross body equilibrium,
trunk strength.
 Psychomotor abilities e.g. multi limb coordination, response orientation, reaction
time, speed of movement, finger dexterity,
manual dexterity, rate control, aiming

Measurement of abilities
 There
are many standard tests for the
measurement of ability.
 Reaction ruler
 Sit and reach
 Stroke stand
Task
 Complete
the stroke stand test and
analysis results.