A triadic comparison of the use of observational learning amongst team sport athletes, coaches, and officials

Objective: The purpose of this research was to investigate patterns of observational learning implemented by team sport athletes, coaches, and officials. Method: The Functions of Observational Learning Questionnaire (FOLQ; Cumming, Clark, Ste-Marie, McCullagh, & Hall, 2005) was administered to 240 participants (20 athletes, coaches, and officials from basketball, baseball, ice hockey and soccer respectively). Results: Analysis of variance revealed that the skill function (M 1⁄4 5.33, SD 1⁄4 1.16) was significantly highest across all participants, followed by the strategy (M 1⁄4 4.81, SD 1⁄4 1.23), then performance functions (M 1⁄4 3.33, SD 1⁄4 1.23). The results also indicated that coaches (M 1⁄4 5.62, SD 1⁄4 0.90) scored significantly higher than athletes (M 1⁄4 5.16, SD 1⁄4 1.27) and officials (M 1⁄4 5.20, SD 1⁄4 1.23) on the skill function; coaches (M 1⁄4 5.15, SD 1⁄4 1.13) ranked significantly higher than athletes (M 1⁄4 4.74, SD 1⁄4 1.32) and officials (M 1⁄4 4.55, SD 1⁄4 1.15) on the strategy function; and officials (M 1⁄4 3.61, SD 1⁄4 1.20) scored significantly higher than coaches (M 1⁄4 3.05, SD 1⁄4 1.23) on the performance function. Conclusions: The pattern of observational learning for all participants was similar to previous findings. Individually, coaches scored highest on the skill and strategy functions, while officials scored highest on the performance function. The results are noteworthy as they provide the first comparison of athletes, coaches, and officials. Comparisons amongst these sport participants may lead to a better understanding of the learning process that occurs through observation for athletes, coaches, and officials. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The terms imitation, modeling, observational learning, and emulation have often been used interchangeably, and sometimes to the detriment of advancements in knowledge (Greer, Dudek-Singer, & Gautreaux, 2006). Observational learning and modeling, as examples, are terms that refer to situations in which individuals copy and then learn new cognitive skills, motor skills, or patterns of behavior following the observation of others (e.g., Bandura, 1986). Heyes (2001) argued that task difficulty, task novelty, and context were also factors that needed to be considered during the observation process. Heyes further contended that learners do not necessarily only copy actions, butmay instead be operating at a goal directed level, and used the term emulation to define learning gained through action observation. Regardless of the term used, there is clear converging evidence from neuroimaging studies in humans and neuronal recording studies in non-human primates that the neural circuitry involved in the observation of action overlaps extensively with that involved in the execution of the observed action (for a review see Grèzes & Decety, 2001). Jeannerod (2001) uses such evidence, in addition to other sources, to argue for the functional equivalence among action execution, action observation, and action imagined. Recently, Calvo-Merino, Grèzes, Glaser, Passingham, and Haggard (2006) demonstrated, through fMRI testing of expert ballet dancers, that neural circuitry for both a visual representation of the kinematics of movement, as well as a motoric representation of the motor commands is accessed via observation of human movement. Such findings provide evidence for purely motoric influences through action observation, and not just the visual influences originally proposed. This evidence of visual andmotoric neural representations suggests that overt action does not need to happen after action observation for it to be useful. Indeed, findings of this nature provide a greater understanding as to why observational practice is effective for skill acquisition (e.g., Clark & Ste-Marie, 2007). Cumming and colleagues, however, (Cumming et al., 2005) recently questioned whether observation in the sport realm was only used for skill execution and tested if it was also used for other means. Taking a different research approach, they went directly to the athletes and asked them to provide information concerning * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 613 562 5800x8849; fax: þ1 613 562 5149. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.J. Hancock).