Tactical Decision-Making in Sport

How Coaches Can Help Athletes to Make Better In-Game Decisions

David Cooper, Barrie Gordon, David Cooper, Barrie Gordon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000063943
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Métodos de enseñanza de la educación

This book expands on the 'Developing Thinking Players' model across a wide range of team and individual sports, to explain how coaches can help athletes to learn how to make better decisions during play and to think for themselves. It provides an overview of game-centred and athlete-centred approaches to teaching and coaching in sport, combining essential theory with practical tips and guidance.

Written by an international team of coaching researchers and practising coaches, the book provides sport-specific instructions for coaching players in territory games, net games, striking games, target games, racquet games and combat sports, including netball, basketball, ice hockey, cricket, softball, football, rugby, volleyball, squash and karate. The book argues that the implementation of these student and athlete-centred approaches creates more opportunities for athletes to understand their sport and improves their ability to think for themselves and to learn to make better in-game decisions. Providing a theoretical underpinning for teaching tactical decision-making, it considers the development of players at all levels and age groups, from youth athletes to elite level. Thirteen sport-specific case studies offer real-world coaching insights.

This is essential reading for any student, researcher or practising teacher or coach working in sport, physical education and coach education.

PART I

Introduction

1

LINKING ATHLETE-CENTRED COACHING, GAME-CENTRED APPROACHES AND DEVELOPING THINKING PLAYERS TO IN-GAME TACTICAL DECISION-MAKING

David Cooper

Coaches who wish to develop a player’s ability to become a better in-game tactical decision-maker need to coach in ways that facilitate this growth. It is important that the coach creates an environment where athletes are empowered to be active participants in their coaching and learning experience. This is a fundamental pillar of all Athlete-Centred Coaching (ACC) approaches, as outlined by Miller and Kerr (2002), Kidman (2005), Kidman and Lombardo (2010), Headley-Cooper (2010) and Pill (2017). An important aspect of the athlete empowerment process is developing a supportive and non-threatening practice environment where athletes take responsibility for their decision-making and find answers to the challenges that are presented to them. A supportive environment means that making, and learning from mistakes in practice becomes an integral part of their development. It is only after athletes become comfortable with this process in practice, that they will begin to feel confident about making their own decisions in the in-game environment.

One method of teaching and coaching sport that will be discussed in this chapter, and throughout the book, is the Game-Centred Approach (GCA).

This method focuses on the coach or teacher creating in-game or in-practice learning situations that help athletes and students understand what choices they have in solving challenges which arise in any game or practice situation. Coaches using GCA believe that athletes learn best when game situations are simplified and explained, using small-sided games or activities where the normal rules and playing dimensions have been adapted to focus on a certain skill or tactical play.

This chapter will consider the following four well known models:

• Teaching Games for Understanding (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982, 1986)

• Play Practice (Launder & Piltz, 2013)

• Game Sense (Light, 2013; Light & Harvey 2018)

• Developing Thinking Players (Gordon, 2015)

Teaching Games for Understanding

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model was initially created by David Bunker and Rod Thorpe from Loughborough College of Education (now Loughborough University) in the 1980s. TGfU was developed in response to strong criticism of school Physical Education (PE) programmes. This criticism was based on the belief that PE concentrated largely on teaching technical sport skills which students were then unable to apply when playing in actual games. It was also felt that students developed a limited sense of ‘the game’ and only a rudimentary knowledge of the tactics and strategies.

TGfU has taken nearly 30 years to become internationally accepted by health and physical education teachers and coaches as one of the most effective ways of teaching and coaching sports. This book will use “PE” as the designation of teachers of physical education for all teachers involved in the practice of teaching health and physical education

For many years PE teachers preferred the traditional model of a skill-based games teaching curriculum. But as PE and Games became an increasingly optional school subject, students who had not been successful or did not enjoy sport chose other subjects and the PE teacher was faced with developing a new student-friendly approach to encourage pupils to choose PE. TGfU fitted this description perfectly. Subsequently, colleges and universities who were tasked with training the next generations of PE teachers embraced this new approach. There is now an extensive body of research into TGfU, with works by Linda Griffin and Joy Butler (2005; Butler & Griffin 2010) leading the way. Other respected authors have contributed to this scholarly body of work, such as Launder and Piltz (2013), Light (2013) and Light and Harvey (2017)

Game Sense

The first reference to Game Sense is attributed to den Duyn (1997) but it has taken until 2013 for Richard Light in his book Game Sense: Pedagogy for Performance, Participation and Enjoyment to bring this model out of the shadows of TGfU. However, the use of “game sense” has become a synonym for an athlete who regularly demonstrates good decision-making in moment-to-moment times in games play. In the teaching and coaching content, it has come to mean an approach using modified sport games that engage the participant in an activity that develops both skill learning and strategic games playing. It is often described as “making the best play at the most appropriate time”. This requires the athlete to observe and understand what is going on around them, and then based on their experience of playing the game, make the best choice to solve that problem or challenge. This has been called Game Intelligence.

Play Practice

Similar to Light’s description of Game Sense is the model described in Play Practice (Launder & Piltz (2013). Fundamental to the philosophy of all GCA models is the use of small-sided games rather than the full game as a teaching and coaching tool. The teacher or coach designs a practice or game that is relevant or similar to the full game but is played in a smaller area (sometimes called a grid) with fewer players on each team (3 v 3) or even unbalanced teams (4 v 2). Here the actual game play is reproduced on a much smaller level, which allows the players the time and opportunity to solve their own in-game scenarios.

The role of the teacher or coach is to “design” these games so that the players can find ways of solving the problem without the teacher or coach telling them the answer. This practice is described as “deliberate practice” by Ericsson and Starks (2006). This is a major fundamental of GCA and is also a classic example of ACC or student-centred learning. By encouraging the player(s) to engage their cognitive decision-making processes as well as their physical and motor skills, coaches can develop a more holistic approach to learning, teaching and coaching.

Many international associations including the United States Soccer Federation use a version of the Play Practice model in their grassroots coaching schemes. In this GCA, the game is the focus. In the first stage, practice starts by playing the game or a modified version of the game in a safe and enjoyable environment, usually in small-sided games played in grids. The coach or teacher observes the players and guides them towards finding their own solutions to a particular challenge. For example, how can four attackers best keep possession of the ball against two defenders?

In the second stage, based on the teacher or coach’s observation of the first stage, specific practices are designed to develop the challenges posed in the first stage. This could be either a skill-based practice designed to improve the players’ ball control and retention, or a strategy-based practice where players are encouraged to understand the concept of creating space and giving alternative pass options to the person who has the ball.

The third stage is a return to the game in either the full game or a larger version of the modified game (such as 6 v 6). The teacher or coach can also add a new dimension to the practice where the players have to keep possession but move the ball forward into the attacking zone. Defenders are tasked with delaying them or taking the ball from them. In this final game the teacher or coach tries to keep their technical or tactical comments to the bare minimum and provides only positive words of encouragement to all the players. This process can be called “Progressing the Game”. The teacher or coach uses this opportunity to observe the game, to evaluate their success at communicating ideas to the players, assess how much the players have learned (or not learned) and plan for next session. In summarising this “Play–Practice–Play” approach, the teacher, or coach designs the practice for a specific skill or game purpose. The game is played by athletes in a safe, enjoyable, and positive environment where it is acceptable to make mistakes without being criticised by the coach.

Historically, TGfU has been associated with teaching PE to children aged 5–12 mostly at the primary or elementary school level. Game Sense requires the athlete to have developed a background of experiences upon which to draw and is often associated with more developed players. As the title of the Launder and Piltz (2013) book suggests, Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players from Beginners to Elite can be used for all levels of abilities. It is more prescriptive and develops pedagogical concepts that help to create situations that maximise learning and positively influence the attitude of learners.

Launder and Piltz (2013) break the process of teaching activities into four sequential stages. These are:

• Simplifying activities

• Shaping activities

• Focusing activities

• Enhancing activities

The role of the teacher or coach has changed to becoming the learning facilitator or game designer rather than the person who is telling their students and athletes what to do. Concepts of enjoyable and meaningful play are developed so that athletes enjoy the learning experience and will be keen to continue and develop mastery of their game-playing skills and strategies.

Developing Thinking Players

The most recent of the four GCAs to learning, teaching and coaching is the Developing Thinking Players model as developed by Barrie Gordon (2015). This approach uses modified equipment and rules to introduce and develop tactical understanding and decision-making. This approach can lead to advanced tactical understanding and decision-making for players with a wide range of skills and experience. A full explanation of the Developing Thinking Players model can be found in Part II, Chapter 2, Developing Thinking Players written by Barrie Gordon.

Although each GCA has its own teaching and learning principles, there is a large area where they overlap in approach and demonstrate non-linear pedagogy. In Figure 1.1 the “inner core” represents this area where we find the student or athlete as the primary focus of these approaches. As such we can demonstrate how the GCA to learning, teaching and coaching are an integral part of both student-centred teaching and athlete-centred coaching models. Each one of the four models suggests practice situations in which athletes develop, learn, and successfully perform plays demonstrating that they understand what is required. The more times they practice these plays, the better they become at recognising what they should do in different in-game situations and making better decisions on their own.

FIGURE 1.1 The nonlinear relationships that exist between teaching games for understanding, play practice, game sense and developing thinking players

For more information relating to this topic refer to Chow, Davids, Button, and Renshaw’s (2015) description of nonlinear pedagogy in skill acquisition. In this book the authors address the complexity of learning movement skills in a constraints-led approach as it is applied to sport skill acquisition.

Making better in-game choices or decisions

An athlete’s ability to make successful in-game choices or decisions has been described by Launder and Piltz (2013) as a four-step process. These steps are:

Step 1. Read the display by scanning what is going on around you.

Step 2. Process what you have scanned – the brain has to determine what the athlete has seen.

Step 3. Make the best decision (based on steps 1 and 2) about what you are going to do.

Step 4. Perform the skill or activity that you have decided is the most appropriate choice and perform it at the optimum time.

Sounds simple. But if it were, a lot of athletes and...