Age Differences and Inter-relationships between Skill and Learning in Gross Motor Performance of Ten- and Fifteen-Year-Old Boys

Abstract

The speed of performance of a sensory-motor skill is slower in 10-year-old than in 15-year-old boys, in both initial performance and in final performance after learning has reached a plateau. The younger boys improve more, have less task-specificity, and their individual differences in learning have a greater influence in determining final skill than is the case for the older boys. Within each age group, the amount of learning tends to be the same in similar tasks that differ in initial speed of performance. Fifty per cent or less of individual differences in motor learning are predictable from the pre-learning performance, and the direction of the relationship is negative, showing the futility of attempting to measure educability from performance level. Learning ability must be tested directly.