MOTOR LEARNING IN SPORTS SCIENCE: DIFFERENT THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR DIFFERENT TEACHING METHODS

Sport teaching methods are widely investigated by numerous scholars. The most widespread traditional teaching practices have their theoretical basis in the cognitive approach and in a prescriptive teaching vision. Cognitive approach implies specific psychological models of motor learning: Open Loop and Closed Loop motor control models and Generalized Motor Program theory. Other scholars study sport teaching methods from another point of view called the ecological approach. In this case, trainers focus on educational setting and interpret learning as the research for physical and motor solutions available in the environment. This approach has its psychological basis in Bernstein's degrees of freedom theories and in Motor Imagery. The discrete sequence Stimulus identification - Response Selection - Response programming, according to which the psychology describes the mechanism of perception – action, faithfully repeats the IPO model (input - processing - output). Information processing, however, is based on assumptions that knowledge is external to the learner. It does not take into account human experience and the ways in which perception is shaped by, and interacts with, the individual’s life experiences. From this perspective, the ecological approach to teach sports appears to be more up to date concerning the evidences and elaborations from scientific research. Yet, in training methods, teaching practices appear to be more related to the cognitive approach, when they not directly descend from a behaviorist or cognitive framework. Methods of this study is to analyze the specific aspects of learning approach in sports science. The hypothesis is that the conceptual framework related to ecological approach to training methods could be more scientifically founded than the current training methods founded on tutorials tools.