Skills and Techniques
Lesson Eight
In addition to the principles of effective practice,
feedback, motivation and concentration are important in
the development of any skill/technique.
We will be focussing on Feedback and Motivation as these
are the most important to us.
If you had to answer a question on how one or two of the
above influenced your performance you would more likely
discuss Feedback and Motivation.
Feedback
 Feedback is information you collect about your performance. There are different
types of feedback. The types you collect depend on the task you are completing
and what you wish to know about your performance.
 There are two main categories of feedback:
Internal (Intrinsic) Feedback.
Feedback
External (Extrinsic) Feedback.
Internal
(Intrinsic)
External
(Extrinsic)
Feedback is essential for performance improvement.
Enables you to identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Helps plan improvements to your performance.
Provides reinforcement about the successful parts of your performance.
Positive feedback increases your motivation and encourages you to work
towards further improving your performance.
Internal (Intrinsic)
 Internal feedback concerns
movement awareness, i.e. how it
feels to you (Kinaesthetic
awareness).
 You can feel how you execute
shots, do you feel:
• Side on.
• Balanced.
• Weight on back foot.
• Transferring weight forward.
 During an overhead clear you
would receive internal feedback
about the action through the
positioning, control, balance, coordination and timing you felt
when completing the overhead
clear.
External (Extrinsic)
 External feedback concerns
information gathered from
another source.
 It could be gathered from:
 Observation Schedules
 Video Recording
 Digital Images
 Information from teacher
 Knowledge of results.
 You could receive external
feedback on the result of an
overhead clear from a scatter
diagram, video recording of you
performing overhead clear,
feedback from teacher, knowledge
of whether you won a point.
Using feedback to help you
The manner in which you use/collect feedback should relate
effectively to the activity and be specific to what you need to know.
In badminton you could use internal feedback towards the end of the
associative and during autonomous stage of skill learning to help you
grove the overhead clear action to muscle memory.
When completing the overhead clear you should be aware of your
stance – do you feel like you are standing side on, is your weight
transferred to your back foot, does your weight transfer forward at
moment of impact with shuttle. By being aware of these factors, you
will develop a feeling and awareness of when you have performed
the overhead clear effectively.
Using feedback to help you
For the same action you could use various forms of external feedback
to help you grove the overhead clear action to muscle memory.
You could use a video recording to see yourself perform the overhead
clear. You could also use the video to slow your performance down
and more accurately complete an observation schedule of your
overhead clear. A variety of observation schedules could be used to
gather a variety of information. Movement Analysis to compare
yourself with a model performer at Preparation, Action, Recovery
stages. Scatter diagram to record where you played your overhead
clears to.
Ensuring Feedback is effective…
 For feedback to be effective it needs to be positive.
 Positive feedback focuses on what you did well and suggests how further
improvements could be made. Positive feedback links to motivation. For
example, if you have just finished your game and you receive positive
feedback about the effectiveness of your overhead clear this is more likely
to motivate you to make further improvements.
 Giving negative feedback which tends to concentrate on what you are
doing wrong is not useful, and should not be given. Negative feedback
fails to explain how you can improve your performance and is dispiriting
and de-motivating.
 To ensure that the positive feedback you receive is effective, it needs to
be accurate, relevant to your performance and given as soon as possible
after performance.
Motivation
 Motivation is your level of desire to succeed. You need to be
motivated in order to improve your level of performance. (You
need to want to do it. In sport you will have heard the expression
he/she/they wanted it more than their opponent)
 Your aim is to optimise your motivation for the practice session
you are undertaking.
 The most common distinction is whether your motivation is
Internal (intrinsic) or External (extrinsic)
Motivation
Internal
(Intrinsic)
External
(Extrinsic)
Motivation
Having only one form of motivation is rare in sport. Commonly both
internal and external motivation are involved.
For example in Physical Education…….
Internal motivation comes through a genuine desire to improve your
performance. (You will have picked PE because you enjoy it, you
participate in a particular activity because you enjoy it).
The only reason you want to improve your overhead clear is to make you
a better badminton player.
External motivation comes through wishing to achieve a better practical
grade or using your overall qualification to gain entry to college or
university.
You wish to improve your overhead clear to get a better badminton grade
which will help you achieve a better overall course award.
External Motivation – Goal Setting
You can use goal setting to keep you motivated and ensure that you
perform at your highest level
Setting goals is a good way of keeping you motivated.
Why… Because when your internal motivation is low (can’t be
bothered/lazy) you will have little desire to improve. However if
you set yourself a goal your external motivation will more than
likely increase motivating you to work harder.
Goal setting involves you setting challenging yet achievable targets
which are specific to your level of performance.
For example… In Golf you may set a target of trying to only two putt
on any green. Once this has been achieved you could increase the
difficulty by having to one putt on four greens and two putt on the
remaining holes.