Lesson video

Hello there.

I'm really glad you've chosen to join me here today for this lesson on types of guidance.

Now my name is Mr. Broome and I'm going to be guiding you through this lesson on types of guidance from the unit of work, "Sports psychology: goal setting, guidance and feedback".

Let's take a look, shall we? Okay.

So by the end of today's lesson, you should understand in greater depth and be able to explain further the four different types of guidance that you can see on the screen there.

They're namely visual, verbal, manual, and mechanical.

Here are the keywords for today's lesson.

Generally, these are definitions of those different types of guidance, which should become much more familiar during the lesson.

And let's have a look at the structure of today's lesson.

Well, we're going to divide the lesson into four parts, and in each part, we're gonna delve deeper into one of those types of guidance.

And hopefully after each, you will come out with a much greater understanding of that type of guidance.

Starting as you can see with visual guidance.

But first of all, maybe a little explanation of what is guidance for those of you who may be not sure.

Guidance is a way of helping somebody to learn something.

In our case, we're interested in how they might learn a skill in physical activity or in sport.

And guidance is defined here as a way of conveying information to the person who's learning or the performer.

Visual guidance of course is one of the types of guidance, but there are four that you're going to learn today.

And I've got an icon here for each of them.

I wonder if you can match them with the icon.

So here we have of course, visual guidance with the eye icon.

We have verbal guidance with the ear.

Manual guidance is represented by a pair of hands and mechanical guidance is represented by those cogs and chains.

But right now we're focused on visual guidance.

Now visual guidance is when the learner is shown how to perform a skill, something they see.

Types of visual guidance, which you are probably quite familiar with, well, here's one, a coach demonstration, or let's say a PE teacher demonstration.

I imagine that you've been in a PE lesson where the teacher has gathered all the class around them and from that position has then demonstrated a skill and you are expected then to go away and try to perform the skill yourself.

Most of us will have been in that situation.

Other ways that we can see guidance and see how to perform a skill could be watching somebody else, could be somebody in your class, could be somebody in a team that you go to watch, could be somebody on TV, but you see how they perform something and then you try to replicate that.

That's another way of seeing the guidance, visual guidance.

Other ways might include photos, diagrams, drawings, or videos.

Essentially these are all still things that you can see, even if it's not somebody doing it live in front of you, but they're ways of seeing the guidance and understanding how to perform.

So let's have a look at some practical examples.

I've got some examples here, starting with a yoga instructor.

What you can see there is the yoga instructor sat at the front facing the class, demonstrating, in this case, a stretch and the class are following what she is doing.

So she's guiding them visually.

Quite a different example here is this young basketball player is learning from the coach who's using a diagram on a clipboard to show them perhaps how or where the skill should be performed.

And finally, a one-to-one situation here with a youngster learning from a coach who's literally showing them with their body how perhaps a batting skill, I imagine, should look when it's performed.

All types of visual guidance.

Here's a quick check for understanding.

Which of the following A, B, or C, is an example of visual guidance? Now A is using a float when you're swimming.

B is hearing some feedback from your PE teacher.

And C is watching a coach perform a demonstration.

Which is a visual guidance example? Very well done if you said C because the keyword there is that you are watching the coach perform a demonstration.

The other two examples didn't include something that you can see.

So each of these types of guidance we look at today have their own advantages and their own disadvantages.

They have times where it would be the perfect type of guidance to use and others where perhaps you shouldn't be using them.

A key skill for you is going to be the ability to analyze a situation and say what type of guidance would suit that situation best.

And so we're going to look at these advantages and disadvantages.

Now an advantage of visual guidance is that if you do have a great big group of people who you're trying to guide, just like the example we had earlier perhaps of the PE teacher, a great thing is being able to gather them all and show them all the same demonstration at the same time.

It's a great time saver for the teacher.

Imagine if they had to go to every individual learner in the class and give them each an individual demonstration.

That would take a long time.

Another great example of visual guidance is that it gives you a mental image that you can go away and copy.

You can still remember what that demonstration looked like, even when you go away and try and replicate it.

So whenever you're thinking what that looked like, you will have that mental image in your head that you can try and copy.

Now a disadvantage of using visual guidance is when the demonstration itself isn't particularly good.

If it's inaccurate or uses poor technique, chances are all the people who saw that technique will go away with their mental image of that incorrect technique and replicate also an incorrect technique.

So demonstrations are great, but only when they're actually good demonstrations.

Another disadvantage of visual guidance can be that if you only use visual guidance to explain or to guide a learner, what might happen is that, especially with something that's really difficult, is that the learner might see it and just be like, wow, that's so much happened there.

I don't really understand what was going on.

And so it might be that visual guidance can just be a little bit too much, or there can be too much information in a very quick period of time for the learner to actually understand what's going on, especially if they're at the beginning stage of learning.

Quick check for understanding.

Is this statement true or false? An advantage of visual guidance is that it can be seen by lots of learners at the same time.

Okay, that statement is true.

Again, we go back to that example of the PE teacher showing everybody a demonstration.

Why is it true? Because it saves time.

That's a great advantage to the person who's trying to give the guidance, isn't it? The second true or false statement here, visual guidance is always a suitable method of guidance in skill learning, always being the keyword there.

Okay, in this case, and well done if you said false, in this case, visual guidance isn't always the most suitable method of guidance, because visual guidance, if there's nobody to demonstrate, may actually end up leading to incorrect technique being performed by the learners.

And demonstrations alone might be too complex, especially with beginners.

So it's not always a suitable method of guidance, even though it is a very useful one in many occasions.

Here's your practice task.

Here's Jun, and Jun plays for an elite hockey team.

Now elite is a keyword there.

Explain two reasons why Jun's coach might choose to use visual guidance in their team training session.

So two reasons why this elite hockey team, their coach is going to choose to use visual guidance.

Pause the video here, write down your two reasons, and I'll see you in a moment with some suggested answers.

Okay, let's take a look at some of the things you might have said, hopefully you've got something similar to the answers that I have for you here.

Okay, so you might have said, well, the coach might have a big squad of people that he needs to demonstrate to at the same time.

And so visual guidance would be ideal for that.

The coach might want to provide his team with a mental image for them to go away and copy.

Maybe even they're gonna go away and copy it after the training session during the week.

So by showing them how to do it, the coach hopes that they can keep that mental image and go away and practice it maybe at home.

The coach could perform demonstrations that are accurate.

So if the coach has that confidence in their own ability to perform accurate demonstrations that are actually going to lead to good learning, then that might be why they choose to use a visual guidance.

And finally, elite was a key word, wasn't it? So Jun's clearly experienced in playing hockey, and experienced players or elite players, they can understand the complex demonstrations because they've seen so much of the hockey skills that they will see it and understand it a lot better than a beginner might.

Well done if your answers were similar to mine.

Now we're going to move on to our second type of guidance and that's verbal guidance.

And you'll see here that the verbal guidance icon is an ear.

It's an ear because this is when people receive guidance from people who are speaking to them or giving them verbal instructions.

So words you've probably come across before.

Sports coaches are giving verbal guidance all the time.

I'm sure you can picture a coach or a manager on the side of the pitch during the game, shouting instructions to their team.

Here's some examples of verbal guidance.

I've got a picture here of a group of players surrounding their coach while that coach gives them a team talk.

Could be before the game, couldn't it? It might be after the game debrief, or it might be in a break in the game like half time.

But what's clear is that he's giving them instructions verbally, perhaps telling them what they're doing well or perhaps telling them what they need to do better.

And in a very similar picture, but in a one-to-one situation here, we have another baseball image, don't we? And what's clearly happening here is that the coach is talking to the young learner there, giving them some guidance, perhaps giving them some motivation, helping them understand how well they're performing.

So a quick test for you.

Which of these pictures here shows an example of verbal guidance? A, B, or C? Take a good look.

Well done, if you said A.

A is a very similar picture to the previous slide.

A shows a coach talking to the players, probably telling them how well they're performing, maybe giving them some motivation, but verbally.

Whereas in picture B, we don't see any verbal guidance happening, and in picture C, we don't see the coach guiding the person verbally.

So again, when is verbal guidance a good thing? When is verbal guidance not necessarily the best type of guidance to be used? Let's have a look.

Some of the great things about verbal guidance are that they can be delivered really quickly and easily.

If you think about it, you could say some guidance without needing to set anything up, without needing to necessarily gather everybody around, you certainly don't need any equipment, you just use your voice and you say it quickly and easily.

This works really well with experienced performers because experienced performers tend to understand all the terminology, all the lingo that goes with their sport.

And so they can be told something from a coach and they understand it based on their experience.

Whereas perhaps with people in the earlier stages of learning, they might not really understand the terminology so well.

It's also a great way of checking with an athlete.

You can say to an athlete, do you understand? Or ask them a question and quite quickly you can get some feedback about whether they do understand what it is that you're trying to guide them towards.

On the disadvantages side, so verbal guidance has its advantages, but it can also be perhaps not the most suitable type of guidance in situations where the learner perhaps needs to see the skill being performed.

If you only use verbal guidance and you tell somebody how to perform something just by telling them, but not showing them, they might not get that picture of what it's supposed to look like.

Also verbal guidance, a lot of people tend to to speak too much, perhaps give too much guidance because it's so easy and so quick.

And that can lead to information overload where there's too much information to process for the learner.

And finally, the learner may not understand the instruction.

Some instructions are too complex or too long to process all of it in one go.

And so we need to be careful that verbal guidance is short and sweet and really succinctly gets the message across.

Let's just have a check for understanding then.

Which of these is an advantage of verbal guidance? Is it A, possible information overload? Is it B, it works well with experienced performers who understand the terminology? Is it C, that the learner may not understand the instruction? Is it D, that the learner doesn't see the skill being performed? Congratulations if you chose B, that it works well with experienced performers who understand the terminology.

The other three examples there were actually disadvantages of verbal guidance, reasons we might not use it.

Here's a practice task for you.

Let's have a look at that picture there.

What we've got is a learner who is at the beginning stages of learning how to box with their coach.

Now I would like you to describe three reasons why the coach here only using verbal guidance might not be effective in this situation.

That's key there is that they're only using verbal guidance.

Three reasons.

If you pause the video there, I'll see you on the other side with a few suggested answers.

Okay, so describing three reasons why only using verbal guidance might not be effective in this situation.

Let's take a look at some of my suggested answers.

Hopefully you've got something that looks similar.

So you might have said, okay, this learner may not yet understand boxing instructions or terminology.

Boxing has a lot of its own language, and if the coach is using that language and the learner has never heard it before, that's just going to lead to confusion.

The coach may give too much verbal information, especially for somebody who's beginning, talking too much at them, giving them too much verbal guidance may well lead to information overload.

So you have to be very careful not to speak too much.

And finally here, the learner, because they're at the beginning stage, they may benefit from other types of guidance more so than verbal guidance.

They might need to see what the technique looks like if they're going to understand what it is they're supposed to be doing.

They may need some visual guidance.

Well done if your answers are roughly in line with that.

Okay then, so time now to move on to our third type of guidance, which is manual guidance.

I wonder if you could perhaps work out what manual guidance is quite as easily as you did with visual and verbal.

It's perhaps not quite so easy to guess.

So here we go.

When a coach physically supports the learner or moves the learner with their hands to help them learn how to perform the skill, that's what we call manual guidance.

And that's why the icon for manual guidance in this lesson was the pair of hands.

Here's some examples of manual guidance in sport.

Now we have a ballet dancer here learning how to hold the correct position, and you can see her teacher there is moving her with her hands into the correct position.

A very similar picture here shows a fitness instructor helping somebody to make sure that they're using the correct technique as they lift the weights.

And my third example there of a gymnast who's walking along the beam supported, physically supported by the coach while she does so.

So a quick check.

Which of these skills would most benefit from manual guidance at the beginner stage? Remembering that manual guidance means that the coach would be physically moving them into position or supporting them.

Is it A, our football example, B, the gymnastics example, or C, the jogging example? Okay, the answer here was B, so congratulations if you said B.

Let's think why that would be the case.

Well, most people learn to play football and learn to jog without the need for much support from a coach, if any.

It's very rare to see manual guidance used in jogging or in football.

However, with gymnastics, learners at the beginner stage generally don't have perhaps the strength or the skill level to perform complex moves like the guy is in that picture.

And so that's a much more likely scenario where we're gonna need to use manual guidance.

So well done if you said B.

Here we go again.

We are getting familiar with this table, aren't we? But this time we're going to look at some advantages and disadvantages of manual guidance.

So first of all, an advantage of manual guidance.

If we think back to the girl who's on the balance beam with the gymnastics coach, that's going to give her a lot of confidence to give that skill a try.

Those beams are quite high up and can be quite nervous having a go at that for the first time.

But having the coach with her hopefully gave her the confidence that she needed to give it a try.

And that goes hand in hand with this reduction in danger.

Manual guidance is really good for reducing the danger of an activity.

The chance of falling off the beam when you're by yourself is quite high.

By being guided manually by a coach like we saw in the picture, that girl is in a lot less danger of falling off the beam there.

And what that does with the confidence increase and the danger reduced, it allows the learner to get a feel for the movement in a safe environment.

Okay, so that girl is learning what it feels like to walk along the balance beam, but in a safe environment where she feels confident to do so.

And how about some disadvantages to manual guidance? Well, first of all, too much manual guidance can lead to an overreliance.

Imagine that the coach is always, every time that girl tries to go on the balance beam, the coach is always there holding her hands.

She never gets the chance to do it independently.

She'll become reliant on that coach to be there every time she tries to perform the skill and never does it independently, as it's intended.

And that, again, goes hand in hand with this, that the learner can become demotivated or frustrated if they never get the chance to do it by themselves.

If they're always being guided manually, and they've never actually been able to do it independently, it can lead to a little bit of demotivation, and they might not choose not to do the skill anymore.

And finally, some learners just won't appreciate the proximity of the coach while they're trying to perform the skill all the time.

They may not like being physically guided or physically held into a position.

And so that might be a reason why people don't like manual guidance and why it perhaps shouldn't be used with certain learners.

Okay, a quick check for understanding.

We've got three people here.

We've got Laura, we've got Alex and Jacob, and they're each making a statement about manual guidance.

And I want you to tell me if it's an advantage or a disadvantage based on what they're saying.

Okay, let's take a look at Laura first, shall we? So Laura says, "I don't like having the coach so close to me when I'm practicing." Is that an advantage or a disadvantage of manual guidance? In Laura's case, this is a disadvantage.

She doesn't like the idea of having the coach in such close proximity.

And so that is one disadvantage.

Alex says, "I like how I can learn to handstand with the coach and not worry about getting hurt." Advantage or disadvantage? This time, it's an advantage.

Alex likes having the coach there because he feels that reduction in danger gives him perhaps a bit of confidence to be able to try hand standing and not worry about getting hurt.

Finally, Jacob, "The coach has been helping me handstand for years now.

I don't feel like I'm making any progress." Advantage or disadvantage? So in Jacob's case, this is a disadvantage, isn't it, of manual guidance.

Jake was getting frustrated and perhaps demotivated because he's not making the progress and perhaps wants to be able to handstand by himself, without the coach's guidance.

And so this is one of those occurrences where people might get to the point where they don't want to continue practicing the skill because they feel like there's an over-reliance on the coach and manual guidance.

Well done if you said the correct answer for all three of those.

Here's a practice task for manual guidance.

Here we have a coach, similar picture as we've seen before.

He's manually guiding somebody to use the correct technique.

And I want you to think about three factors a coach might consider before they use manual guidance with a learner.

What's going through their mind when they choose or choose not to use manual guidance? Pause the video here, write down your three factors, and I'll see you in a moment with some suggested answers.

Okay.

Reasons a coach might consider before they use manual guidance.

Here's some of the things you might have said.

Check your answers.

They might have considered how experienced is the learner at this skill.

If they're at the beginning stage, then chances are manual guidance might suit them.

Whereas those at the perhaps more experienced end of the learning scale maybe don't need so much manual guidance.

How safe is the skill being learned? We looked earlier at jogging.

Jogging doesn't particularly need much manual guidance at all, if any.

Whereas something like learning the somersault or learning some tricky gymnastics skill might benefit from some manual guidance.

Does the learner need more confidence? The coach might judge whether that learner has the confidence to do something independently or whether manual guidance would be better for them.

Another factor might be the question of has the learner been receiving manual guidance for a long time already? The coach might think actually it's probably time they had a try independently of any manual guidance.

Or, if they're only just beginning to learn, maybe manual guidance is suitable in that case.

Does the learner react well to manual guidance? We saw in our check for understanding test that Laura didn't like having manual guidance.

She didn't like the proximity of the coach.

And so maybe if you are coaching Laura, you choose not to use manual guidance to make her feel uncomfortable.

How will it affect the learner's motivation? Again, is the learner going to benefit and feel motivated to learn the skill? Or is actually giving the manual guidance going to demotivate them from wanting to continue to learn the skill? That's something the coach might consider.

So well done if your three factors matched similarly with something I've written there.

And we're moving on to our final type of guidance, which is mechanical guidance.

And the icon here is some cogs in a chain because it really represents a very different type of guidance, because this time we're talking about guidance using equipment or aids and not actually humans talking, showing or physically guiding somebody.

In this case, there's often nobody else involved.

Here's some examples.

I'm sure lots of you have been in this situation where you learn to swim or you've seen somebody learning to swim using a flotation device, maybe arm bands, maybe a float that you hold, rubber ring around your waist, something that helps you stay afloat while you get a feel for the movement of what it's like to be in the water and swim, but in a safe way because you've got those flotation devices.

And perhaps this is something else you've done.

You've been on a trampoline and you've been strapped into a harness.

This is a very common example of mechanical guidance.

Okay, based on what you've heard already, is this statement true or false that using a bowling machine to learn how to bat in cricket is an example of mechanical guidance? Okay, that statement is true.

Now, why is that the case? This is an example of mechanical guidance because it's a machine that feeds the ball to the batter.

In fact, the batter could be in the room with just the machine, practicing how to bat, learning how to do the batting technique, and nobody else is in the room.

Okay, it's completely mechanical guidance.

The final time, we're going to have a look at advantages and disadvantages of mechanical guidance.

Now, I wonder if this starts to feel quite familiar very quickly.

Let's look at some advantages of mechanical guidance.

It gives the learner confidence.

Taking again the example of somebody swimming in a swimming pool, but using flotation devices because they're new to swimming.

Now, swimming for a non-swimmer is clearly a very dangerous environment and perhaps not somewhere they would like to be without those mechanical guidance aids.

And so they have the confidence to try swimming because they know that they're going to stay afloat.

And that, again, goes hand in hand with the idea of reducing the danger while we're learning the skill.

So the learner gets the feel for the movement, but in a perhaps a safer way that gives them more confidence.

Again, that swimming example.

We're learning how to swim, we can feel how to swim, but there's no danger of sinking because those flotation devices are helping to keep us afloat.

Now, I said, this might feel familiar, I'm going to show you some disadvantages also.

So, disadvantages of using mechanical guidance is that it might become a little over-reliant on that mechanical guidance to teach them how to do the skill.

And if a learner is constantly using some sort of mechanical guidance, they might quickly become demotivated if they never get to try to do the skill without the mechanical guidance.

At some point, they need to be able to have a try at doing it independently, as perhaps the skill was meant to be performed, and at some point, they've got to stop using that mechanical guidance.

Now, those five advantages and disadvantages should feel very familiar to you because they are almost identical to the advantages and disadvantages of manual guidance.

The reasons for using manual and mechanical guidance are very, very similar, and therefore the disadvantages of using both types of guidance are also very similar.

One of the further disadvantages of mechanical guidance is that certain types of mechanical guidance can be very expensive, and perhaps out of the price range of certain people, if they want to learn a skill but might not be able to afford the expensive piece of equipment that it takes to be able to learn it safely.

Let's check how much you understand.

So which of these might be good reasons to use mechanical guidance? Read carefully.

A, the activity is dangerous.

B, the learner is worried about getting hurt.

Or C, the learner is very experienced.

Okay, hopefully you noticed that actually two of the answers there were correct.

If the activity is dangerous, it might be a chance to use some mechanical guidance to reduce the danger.

And if the learner is worried about getting hurt while performing this skill or learning the skill, then mechanical guidance might help to give them more confidence to give it a try.

Okay, so we're gonna really test your knowledge now of your understanding of mechanical guidance with Test D, which asks you to evaluate the use of mechanical guidance when teaching the somersault on the trampoline, and there's a picture there to help you imagine that.

Now with such a question which is going to require an extended answer, Jacob's advice is to not to forget to BUC or book the exam question, that's B for box the command word, U for underline the knowledge, and C for circle the context.

So let's do that together before we move on.

So we're gonna box that command word, which is evaluate, so we recognize that we're being asked to do an evaluation, we're gonna underline the knowledge that we need, which is our knowledge of the use of mechanical guidance, and then we're gonna circle the context, which specifically we're gonna talk about teaching a somersault on the trampoline.

Now with such an extended answer, you're going to be required to show that you know, apply, and can say why to satisfy AO1, AO2, and AO3.

Jacob's back with more advice.

In this case, we know because we boxed the word evaluate as our command word, and with an evaluate question, you need to say why it could be both a positive and a negative thing for the learner.

You're showing that you understand both sides of the story.

Pause the video here and have a go at tackling that question, and then come and join me again for some suggested answers.

Okay, so welcome back.

Let's have a look at how you may have approached the answer to that question.

So AO1 requires you to show some knowledge, show the examiner that you know what mechanical guidance is.

So you might have said something like, mechanical guidance is the use of machinery, equipment, or aids to guide the learner to learn the skill.

Okay.

Then you need to follow that up with some application.

And now we need to think about the context as well.

So mechanical guidance in the form of a harness tied to the performer and controlled by the coach is used to teach somersaulting and trampolining.

That's your application of what you knew from AO1 and now satisfied AO2.

Okay, and finally we have AO3, because this is an extended answer where it's asking you to discuss something in more depth than you perhaps normally would in some straightforward exam questions.

So we're saying why in this case mechanical guidance could be a positive thing or a negative thing, in fact both, for learning this skill.

And Jacob's here to remind you that when you evaluate something you do need to say why it could be both positive and negative thing.

That's the key requirement of this command word.

So what might you have said? Well, positive, you might have said that it makes learning that dangerous skill of somersaulting on trampoline much safer by not allowing the learner to fall.

They can also get a feel for the skill in a safe way and growing confidence, until they are then ready to try without the harness.

That's a positive side of using it.

But of course there are some negative sides to it.

Such as learners may become over-reliant on the harness and be too nervous to perform without it.

They might also become demotivated if they keep having to use it and aren't allowed to try without it.

So while it does give them some feel for the skill, it isn't exactly the same as doing it by yourself, and so not 100% transferable.

Well done if your answer fulfilled A01, A02 and A03 requirements and you said something similar that gave a good balanced argument for the positives and for the negatives of using mechanical guidance to learn the somersault.

So let's just go through a summary of what we've learned today.

Guidance in general is a method of conveying information to learners.

Visual guidance we've looked at is where learners observe a demonstration or video.

It's something you see.

Verbal guidance involves instructing learners through the spoken word to improve their understanding, something you hear.

Manual guidance assists movement physically, helping learners to feel the correct action.

And mechanical guidance very similarly uses objects or aids to support learnings in performing a skill correctly.

It's been a great pleasure to go through this lesson on guidance with you today.

I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you learned a lot.

And I'll see you next time.