Principles of nonlinear pedagogy in sport practice

ABSTRACT

Background: There are deeply relevant questions concerning how to integrate and organise various nonlinear pedagogical strategies and methods in order to structure training in the professional development of Physical Education (PE) teachers and sport coaches. To promote the emergence and development of innovative and adaptive performance behaviours in sport, nonlinear pedagogy advocates the methodology of constraints manipulation to facilitate learning. Sport pedagogues have to manage and apply different constraint manipulations at varying times in practice contexts, that is, while planning before/following a learning session (i.e. designing the micro-structure of practice) and in interactions during the session. In nonlinear pedagogy, the design of practice micro-structure is predicated on the continuous, intertwined relationships between decision-making, action, perception and cognition in sport performance and learning contexts.

Purpose: Here, we present an analysis of the activities that pedagogues engage in to facilitate learning and performance in sport (i.e. the micro-structure of practice) during practical interventions in sport and exercise contexts, based on the use of a Constraints-led approach by PE teachers and coaches.

Method: Based on data from illustrative studies on performance analysis and constraints manipulation, we exemplify some of the main principles and assumptions of nonlinear pedagogy. This synthesis, framed in a nonlinear pedagogy, aims to reveal how adopting a constraint led approach can straightforwardly enhance learning designs of sport practitioners.

Conclusions: This article shares insights from a nonlinear pedagogy that can frame the micro-structure of practice during interventions, compared to utilization of traditional pedagogical practices. It is proposed that PE teachers and coaches are designers of learning environments and that both learning and performance improvement are seen as emerging from the interaction of key constraints (related to task, learner and environment).

KEYWORDS:

• Nonlinear pedagogy
• learning design
• micro-structure of practice
• constraints

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Vanda Correia http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2457-8256

João Carvalho http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8873-0213

Duarte Araújo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7932-3192

Elsa Pereira http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5314-648X

Keith Davids http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1398-6123

Notes on contributors

Vanda Correia is Assistant Professor and Director of the degree in Sport at the School of Education and Communication of the University of Algarve, Portugal. She is particularly interested in understanding the perception-action couplings and the dynamic interaction of constraints in adaptive movement behaviours in sport and child motor development fields.

João Carvalho has a PhD in Sports Sciences. He is Assistant Professor at the School of Education and Communication at the University of Algarve. His research line is focused on the identification of performance indicators, on the description of the interaction dynamics and on teaching based on constraints-led approach. He was a high level coach for more than 30 years and has been a coaching consultant of several of the best Portuguese tennis players.

Duarte Araújo is Head of Department of Sport and health and Associate Professor and of the Faculty of Human Kinetics at University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is Head of the Research Centre CIPER (Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Human Performance), and Director of the Laboratory of Expertise in Sport. His research on sport expertise, perception-action, learning and decision-making, has been funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

Elsa Pereira has a PhD in Sport Sciences and a Master in Sport Management. She is AssistantProfessor at the School of Education and Communication of the University of Algarve, Portugal. She is interested in complexity dynamics in sport management, namely in decision making in sport strategy and development. She has worked as consultant in sport projects, e.g. tourism and regional development, prevention of childhood obesity, nautical stations.

Keith Davids is Professor of Motor Learning at Sheffield Hallam University and heads up the Skill Acquisition Research Theme in the Centre for Sports Engineering. His research focused on the conceptualisation of practice and training and performance preparations from an Ecological Dynamics theoretical perspective.