Practice distribution Random vs Block practice

Practice Distribution:
Random vs Blocked Practice

 What’s the best way to teach a skill, or set
of skills to produce the greatest results in
retention and performance?

“the most important contributor to motor
learning is proper physical rehearsal, or
practice” (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008, p.
256)

 Looking at:

 Random vs Blocked practice

 Some assumed knowledge

Random vs Blocked Practice
 Blocked practice: Practicing one skill
repeatedly. For example practicing a
tennis forehand repeatedly 50 times.

 Random practice: Practicing multiple skills
in a mixed, random order in one
sequence. For example performing a
tennis serve, then a forehand, a
backhand, a volley and then a forehand
shot again (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008)

Blocked vs Random: What does the
research say?

 Blocked practice produces better results in
practice than random practice. However
random practice is shown to produce
better learning, retention and
performance after practice compared to
blocked (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008).
 This is a phenomena termed the
contextual interference effect.

Why is Random Practice more effective?
Elaboration Hypothesis
There are two hypotheses: Elaboration and
forgetting (aka reconstruction) hypotheses.

 Elaboration hypothesis: This hypothesis suggests
that because learners switch from one skill to
another during random practice, this forces
learners to notice the distinctiveness of skills.
This distinction makes skills more meaningful
and thus easier to store and retrieve information
in long term memory (Schmidt & Wrisberg,
2008).
 Shea and Zimny (1983).

The Forgetting Hypothesis
 The forgetting or reconstruction hypothesis:
States that random practice forces learners
to reconstruct the motor program and
parameters of a skill every time they perform
it. Blocked practice learners can apply the
same motor program and parameters at
every repetition. Random learners have more
practice at developing motor programs for
each skill and retrieving information from
long term memory(Schmidt & Wrisberg,
2008).

The Forgetting Hypothesis continued

 Random Practice can make training seem
harder but will produce better retention in
the long run (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008).

 Desirable difficulties (Metcalfe &
Shimamura, 1994). Chapter featuring
Bjork named memory and metamemory
considerations in the training of human
beings.

“[Blocked practice] result in an artificially
high level of performance that gives
learners a false sense of accomplishment”
(Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008, p. 264)

 For optimal performance training needs to
be as close as possible to the target
context (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008).
 Encoding specificity – Practice as you
would perform (Goldstein, 2008).

When to use blocked practice:
Blocked does have its place
Stages
 Cognitive, motor and autonomous stage
 Basic, intermediate, advanced or elite

It has been shown that it is beneficial to begin teaching a skill with
a blocked practice style more so than random. A learner at the
verbal/cognitive stage of a skill should use blocked training until the
fundamental movement patterns of the skill are learned (Schmidt &
Wrisberg, 2008).

 Phase from blocked to random overtime.

 Motor and autonomous stage should be predominately random
practice.

 What about sports with only one skill? Darts example.

Practical Applications
 Blocked practice can give learners more
confidence to perform after training than
random can (Simon & Bjork, 2001).

 Assure students’ their performance and
learning will be better with random practice
(Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008).

 Lee & Wishart (2005) suggest using a small
amount of blocked practice (the rest being
random) to boost learners’ confidence.

Practical Applications

 Blocked practice is more of a traditional
method. Using mostly random practice could
lead to scrutiny by co-workers, employers
and parents (Denham-Mason, 2012).

 Do we coach and teach to look good or to
optimise the learning and performance of our
athletes and students?

Conclusion
The literature shows that random practice
is the more effective than blocked practice
for learning. Coaches and teachers should
chose to use random practice the majority
of time to improve athletes’ and students’
performance in sport and movement skills.
Blocked practice can be used in the
beginning stages of learning and when
gains in confidence are needed, though it
should be used sparingly.

Further Research
 There are several other topics that should
be address to have a complete picture of
effective practice distribution. Research
and understanding of constant vs varied
practice, distributed vs massed practice,
annual plans, volume loads and increases
should all be studied and considered to
optimise practice gains.

Image Credits
 Title- Girls’ basketball practice 1927
 Creator- Seattle Municipal Archives
 Retrieved from-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/2672599360/
 CC license- Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

 Title-Bronc Basketball Practice 9 by Reynaldo Leal
 Creator- thepanamerican
 Retrieved from-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thepanamerican/6263869536/
 CC license- Attribution- NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

 Title- football practice
 Creator- Kanaka Menehune
 Retrieved from- http://www.flickr.com/photos/kanaka/3431805675/
 CC license- Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Reference List
 Denham-Mason, P. (2012). Unit 8913 Motor Control and Skill Acquisition, lecture 19,
week 12: Practice Distribution. [Lecture Recording]. Retrieved from
http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au

 Goldstein, E. B. (2008). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and
everyday experience. Australia: Thomson Wadsworth.

 Lee, T.D., & Wishart, L.R. (2005). Motor learning conumdrums (and possible
solutions), Quest, 57, 67-78.

 Metcalfe, J., & Shimamura, A. P. (1994). Metacognition: Knowing about knowing.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

 Schmidt, R. A., & Wrisberg, C. A. (2008). Motor learning and performance: A
situation-based learning approach. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

 Simon, D. and Bjork, R. (2001). Metacognition in Motor Learning. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 907-912.

 Shea, J.B., & Zimny, S.T. (1983). Context effects in memory and learning movement
information. Memory and control of action. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Thanks for watching.
Maximilian Robinson, 3046903

Practice distribution Random vs Block practice

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