EDF2171

Joshua Leeson and Paul Dadds

Teaching anticipation and movement preparation in HPE

Much difficulty comes with applying a highly competitive and performance based skill into a Physical
Education setting. This is why the teaching of skills relating to the preparation for a movement is
often overlooked by HPE teachers. Abilities including anticipation and reaction fall under the large
category of hard-to-teach movement preparation strategies. An individual who effectively anticipates
a movement uses visual cues, recognises patterns of behaviour and predicts what may happen. This
lowers the reaction time or increases reaction speed, which is a persons ability to respond to a
stimulus and the period of time before a movement is made. Aside from the fundamental motor skills
mentioned in the Australian Curriculum, there is very little mentioned about implementing these
cognitive and physical strategies to develop a higher competency. There is quite a broad content
elaboration of developing and implementing appropriate movement concepts and strategies for
selected movement scenarios (ACARA, Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority) which falls
under the 9-10 band. Although, like most other elaborations in the HPE curriculum document, it
entails multiple different concepts and knowledge that could potentially be grouped together under
this broad description. As well as the curriculum, in our level 2 subject at University, the textbook
prescribed to us; Motor Learning and Skill Acquisition (Spittle, 2013) contains a complete chapter
regarding this content. So if there is such a large emphasis on our future and current HPE educators
knowing this advanced content, is it being taught in a school setting? And more importantly, how is it
taught?
The development of specialised skills and strategies to improve performance will be most evident in
higher year levels, perhaps in sport elective subjects. This is because the students in these classes
would usually have a high level of motivation and interest in improving in their chosen sport or
activity. Teaching and training of advanced skills and cognition like anticipation is most effective in
individuals who have a large amount of experience in a particular activity or sport. In 2008, Dr Bruce
Abernethy developed an experiment testing the differences in accuracy of spatial anticipation in
squash. He found that there is clear evidence in both the lateral and depth predictions of a
progression with experience (Abernethy, 2008). This is because experienced learners have progressed
from the cognitive and associative stages of development and are refining their learnt skills to have a
higher, autonomous competency. Although some students may already be showing signs of
anticipation in a sport elective class, it is more than likely that the majority of students will not. A
single lesson based around the idea of prediction would not suffice any sort of learning outcome. A
much larger unit or set of lessons would need to applied to achieve these outcomes. Starting from the
very basic introduction and theoretical components, lasting multiple lessons, the length of time would
be dependent on the experience of the students.

EDF2171

Joshua Leeson and Paul Dadds

A teacher may be assigned to a highly skilled group of students who are very motivated to improve
their skills in a particular sport. But in reality, these situations are rare. This does not necessarily mean
we should ignore the specialisation and desire for these students to become elite in their chosen sport.
It does however mean that we need to take a realistic approach to teaching this content to the larger
majority of students. It can be very challenging to keep a class of students on task and engaged if they
are not interested in the activity or it is too difficult. By applying advanced knowledge into the class
that does not have prior knowledge or an interest in the topic can then be almost impossible for an
educator. The most difficulty would source from students who do not have a high amount of
knowledge and experience in the sport or activity. A large amount of students, especially in lower year
levels will be at the cognitive stage of learning which would limit their ability to develop advanced
knowledge and acquire new skills. Applying anticipation and more broadly, movement preparation is
a task that is not often attempted by HPE teachers. However there are learning activities that could
potentially be implemented to multiple year levels. Keep in mind that these activities need to promote
the use of visual cues, pattern recognition and spatial/temporal anticipation and the learning curve is
not too great that learning is not occurring. Use of equipment such as reaction balls and a wall can
prove to be a challenging yet fun activity for younger children (A lesson plan based around
developing reaction ability and prediction at a foundation level can be seen on page 18). Whereas a
modified game situation could be applied to older students who may have more experience. One-onone or small team activities can assist in providing additional elements that can assist in producing a
realistic simulation of a sport or game. With assistance from the teacher, students will demonstrate
rapid learning once they can identify visual cues and patterns.
References
Abernethy, B. (2008). Anticipation in squash: Differences in advancecue utilization between expert
and novice players. Journal of Sport Sciences, 8(1), 17-34.
ACARA Australian Curriculum, and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). Health and Physical Education
Curriculum F-10. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/health-andphysical-education
Mccrone, J. (2006). Anticipation in sports. Retrieved from Dichotomistic.com:
http://www.dichotomistic.com/mind_readings_anticipation.html
Peterson, D. (n.d.). Learning to Anticipate Your Opponent. Retrieved from Axon Potential:
http://www.axonpotential.com/learning-to-anticipate-your-opponent/
Spittle, M. (2013). Movement Planning and Preparation. In Motor Learning and Skill Acquisition (pp.
177-196). Melbourne: Pelgrave Macmillan.