Tactical games approach physical education

Using A Tactical Games Approach In Coaching

Coaching Decision- Making Skills: Using

a Tactical Games Approach in Coaching

By Michael P . Sheridan

In your practices, have you ever found yourself express-ing these words out of frustration with your athletes? Many of us have learned to coach in the same ways that we were coached: drill the fundamental skills followed by trying to apply these fundamentals in a scrimmage and hoping that these essentials transfer to game situations. Then, when our athletes do not transfer the skills to the game that we drilled into them in practice, we often get frustrated, discouraged, and angry with them for not dem- onstrating the things on which they were trained! When athletes do not retain information that we think that they learned in our practice, coaches often refer to this phe- nomenon as “game slippage.” “Game slippage” can be a source of much frustration for both athletes and coaches! However, as coaches, if we have not put our athletes in situ- ations in practice which closely simulate game conditions, then why would we expect the athletes to retain that knowl- edge in games? For example, in games, basketball coaches often have difficulty with their players not showing early

What is this column all about? This column is the sixth in a series of articles in Future Focus which will be written for coaches by a coach. The goal of this column is to provide information about recent coaching research to coaches in a user-friendly format. With this in mind, the author will briefly review a recent coaching article from a professional journal, critique it, and offer practical applications for coaches to use in their everyday coaching. It is the column’s intent to encour- age a realistic bridging of coaching science to coaching practice through discussions of real world applications of research. This column will be written with coaches as the intended audience with the following assumptions:

1. Some coaches are interested in applying recent research from coaching science to their coaching.

2. Most coaches have limited access to professional journals that provide scholarly research on coaching science, nor have many coaches time to read, understand, and digest articles in these publications.

3. Implementation of research results into coaching practice can be challenging. Many of the scientific articles are written in a language that is appropriate for scholarly (academic) publications, but many of the writings make it difficult to understand how to apply the results to coaching practice.

“Bridging the Gap between Coaching Research and Practice” is intended to offer coaches access to recent research in an easy-to-use set-up so that coaches may apply this knowledge to their coaching. If coaches also learn how to dissect and analyze research from reading this column, then this would be beneficial. Questions, comments or suggestions about current and/or future articles and topics are welcomed at msheridan@tvschools.org.

Updating Your Coaching Toolbox:

Bridging

the Gap

Between

Coaching Research

and Practice

“We just worked on that in practice yesterday—don’t

you remember?”

“We drill and drill but they still don’t understand

what I want!”

“Our kids are lazy, unmotivated in practice

and they don’t pay attention.”

Spring/Summer 2011 FutureFocus 15

player to play against a pressure defense if we had not yet taught him how to square up in triple-threat position and be strong with the ball (a basic basketball fundamental)? It makes sense that coaches would doubt the player‘s ability to learn to square up and be strong with the ball in a “live” situation against pressure defense without first drilling this skill into the athlete in “skeleton” (no defense) drills? Yet, when we drill these basic skills into a player with- out using live defense, athletes rare- ly find the drills enjoyable and often find them boring and de-motivating. And, as important, an athlete rarely understands how practicing triple- threat position (without a defender to pressure him) will transfer to an actual game situation when there is a real defender pressuring him! So, without using “live” situations to teach players fundamentals, game slippage occurs and athletes often do not transfer what they learned in ”skeleton” drills to “live” game play. The common result is frustration for both the athlete and the coach and can lead to decreased levels of ath- letes’ (and coaches’) enjoyment and motivation. The following research article discusses practical applica- tions for physical education teachers for teaching the games approach. However, the review will attempt to draw connections between the article and sport by providing prac- tical applications for how coaches can use the games approach to improve athletes’ decision-making skills and develop technical skills at the same time.

Article Review Pagnano-Richardson, K., &

Henninger, M. L. (2008). A model for developing and assessing tactical decision-making competency in games play. The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 79(3), 24–29.

that practicing and learning skills in the context of game play is more likely to result in long-term retention of skills in actual competition and reduced game slippage. While some coaches may be aware of the tactics used in the games approach, few use this strategy to teach skills, arguing that skills need to first be developed before athletes can be placed in game situations.

defensive “help” to a teammate who has allowed the person being guarded to drive around her/him. Yet, in prac- tices, it is not uncommon for athletes to provide early “help defense” to a teammate and often even provide “over-help.” Similarly, in matches, golf coaches frequently get frustrated when their golfers choose to hit their driver off the tee when the hole (and perhaps the situation) requires a safer club (e.g., an iron) to be hit. Yet, in practice, the golfer always seems to make better decisions about his club selection on the tee. This article will review research which has studied how using the “games approach” in practices can help reduce game slip- page, improve decision making skills and offer practical applications for coaches based upon the results of this research.

The games approach has been around for almost 35 years in phys- ical education (Wade, 1967). This approach was mostly grounded in the belief that small sided games (2 v 2, 3 v 3), small grids, and conditional games (modified rules and equip- ment) would help young physical education students learn game skills better. These tactics allow students who possessed less skill to work on their weaknesses and allow for the teacher to devote more individual attention to the student to help him or her progress at his or her own rate. Many papers have been written on this subject and there has been considerable debate about the effec- tiveness of this strategy because the tactical approach emphasizes teach- ing games before skills are developed. The philosophy of the games approach is predicated on the idea that techni- cal skills can be learned within the context of a game instead of teaching fundamentals outside of the context of competition in the more traditional “drills and skills” format. The implied advantage of the games approach is

Anecdotal evidence from casu- al observations of many practices reveals that coaches still rely a lot on the “drills and skills” approach to teaching technical skills (fundamen- tals). It seems logical for coaches to assume that fundamentals need to be mastered before allowing athletes a chance to practice them in competi- tive play. For example, why would we allow an offensive basketball

• If we have not

put our athletes in situations in practice which closely simulate game conditions, then why would we expect the

athletes to retain that knowledge

in games?

•

16 FutureFocus Spring/Summer 2011

using exit cards with similar ques- tions. As athletes leave practice, the cards would be distributed to the team. The athletes would reflect on what level they were operating and write how they could move to the next level of competency. All of these techniques help coaches and athletes learn more about their own level of competency and self-awareness, keys to improvement and growth!

Applying Research Findings to Coaching

The techniques suggested by the authors might be uncomfortable for many coaches, because this approach suggests that the coach take on an “athlete-centered approach” rather than a more traditional “coach-cen- tered approach” in his or her coach- ing (de Souza & Oslin, 2008). That is, by using more questioning and obser- vation as opposed to the more classic lecture and drill methods, the coach places herself/himself at the outside of the instruction rather than at the cen- ter of the learning environment. And while this position allows the coach to observe and offer practical assistance, many coaches are used to being at the center of the learning environ- ment. Therefore, teaching through the tactical games approach will likely feel very different to a coach who is trying this new strategy. However, using more athlete-centered coaching behaviors like this can help athletes develop a better understanding about where they are in their own develop- ment. Furthermore, many coaches believe that we must coach every pos- session and critique and fix every mis- take (Wandzilak, Ansorge, & Potter, 1988). This micro-managing style to leadership can be very tiring (for both athletes and coaches) and result in resentment and delayed (if any) athlete cognitive development and growth. In fact, athletes are more

The authors of this article provide examples of how to incorporate teach- ing tactical decision-making skills in the sport of volleyball. However, the nature of the article allows practi- tioners to apply the suggestions to other sports. For example, Pagnano and Henninger suggest that there are four different levels of awareness that athletes develop and pass through on their way to competence in decision making (Table 1).

The authors suggest four tactics for teachers to use to assess where students (and athletes) fall in this rubric of competency:

1. Simply ask; 2. Posters; 3. Journal prompts and; 4. Exit cards.

The review here will focus on “Simply Ask” and “Exit Cards.”

Simply Ask

In order to learn the level at which the athlete is operating regarding their understanding of tactical skills, a coach need only ask (without using a sarcastic/angry tone of voice) the ath- lete: “What were you thinking in that situation?” Then the most important skill and next step for the coach is to LISTEN! Listening can be a chal- lenging task for a coach, because as coaches, we are used to telling, not

listening! By listening, coaches can learn the level of thinking at which the athlete is operating in her/his under- standing and can then prompt him/ her with a question which challenges the athlete to consider the next level of tactical decision making. For exam- ple, if a coach were to ask an athlete, “What were you thinking in that situ- ation,” and the athlete were to offer a reply which only discussed informa- tion about her/him and her/his team- mates, the coach would deduce that the athlete was at operating at Level 2 of competence in her/his decision making skills. When the coach realizes that the athlete was at Level 2, the coach would then prompt athlete with a question which would challenge her/ him to think at a higher level (Level 3). In Level 3, the athlete should be considering not only herself/himself and her/his teammates but also her/his opponent’s strengths, weaknesses or strategic formation. For example, the coach might pose this question: “I like how you were aware of where you and your teammates where positioned; where were the opponents positioned and how might their positioning have changed your decision?”

Exit Cards

To review and help with retain- ing information that is discussed dur- ing practice, the authors also suggest

Competency rubric for teaching tactical skills

TA B L E • 1

Level of typical reactions by competency athletes’ focus athletes in this level

Level 1 Only on self and skill execution “I need to bend my knees more”

Level 2 Mostly on self but starts to consider “I should have set it to our better teammates strengths and weaknesses “hitter in that situation”

Level 3 Begin to acknowledge strengths “I need to think about where the and weakness of opponents “opponents are when I am hitting”

Level 4 Attention include self, teammates, “It was game point, so I tried to opponents, and the game situation “serve it to their weakest passer “to win the game”

Spring/Summer 2011 FutureFocus 17

Michael P. Sheridan, Ph.D., has more than 20 years of experience in edu- cation as a college and high school coach and teacher. Dr. Sheridan is an adjunct faculty member in several uni- versity graduate coaching education programs and is the Vice-Chair for the Sports Science division of OAHPERD for Coaching Science. Sheridan is the author of several published articles on coaching science and youth sports par- ticipation and is a member of the edito- rial board for the Journal of Coaching Education, a peer-reviewed journal for coaching education professionals. Dr. Sheridan is also a coaching educa- tion trainer, certified to instruct coach- ing courses produced by the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) and an Associate Trainer for the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA). Sheridan is an elementary physical education teach- er in the Tri-Valley School District.

and c) a reduction in game slip- page. Moreover, coaches will find that the technical skills upon which they want athletes to improve can also be taught and learned within the context of a game! Consider how you might adopt using the games approach to teach better decision making skills in your practices.

References de Souza, A., & Oslin, J. (2008). A

player-centered approach to coaching. The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 79(6), 24–30.

Kidman, L. (2005). Athlete-centered coaching: Developing inspired and inspiring people. Christchurch, New Zealand: Innovative.

Wade, A. (1967). The F.A. (Football Association) guide to training and coaching. Chicago: Trafalgar Square Publishing

Wandzilak, T., Ansorge, C. J., & Potter, G. (1988). Comparison between selected practice and game behaviors of youth sport soccer coaches. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 18, 332–346.

likely to ignore a coach who tries to coach every possession and who is constantly providing feedback about the last play that was made! More effective coaches know that focusing on the last possession leads to anger and frustration, yet the tendency for many coaches is to tell the players what they did wrong without offering effective feedback about how to fix the error.

An even more effective teaching technique than telling for coaches to consider is to use effective ques- tioning (Kidman, 2005). However, this is a skill that must be practiced and prepared, especially if the coach is used to being a coach-centered coach. This author suggests that coaches prepare a 3 × 5 index card with 3–4 questions that they plan to ask athlete to assess the athletes’ level of competence related to deci- sion making. Moreover, these cards should include follow-up questions that will assist the coach in challeng- ing the athlete to think outside of his comfort zone to a higher level (such as the ones mentioned above). Then, when several athletes have reached the highest level (Level 4), the coach can prompt the higher level athletes to use questioning with their peers to help them advance to new stages of development. This is another exam- ple of a coach using an athlete-cen- tered approach to coaching: involving the athletes in teaching their peers! Table 2 suggests some less effective drill and skill tactics compared with some more effective tactical games techniques to teach decision-making (and technical) skills.

Using the games approach to teach decision-making skills in practices will result in: a) athletes transferring to competition more of the things that they learn in prac- tice; b) increased athletes’ enjoy- ment and motivation to practice;

Coaching tactical vs. technical skills

TA B L E • 2

Coaching More effective tactical skills

(Decision making skills)

Use effective questioning “What were you thinking in that situation?”

Use follow-up questions to promote higher level thinking

“ I like how you think about yourself and your teammates positioning; where were your opponents positioned and what could you have done differently to be successful?”

Exit cards At the end of practice ask the athletes to

write their responses to the same questions that you asked during practice and turn them into you: “Next time how could you move from Level 3 to Level 4 of competence?”

Coaching Less effective technical skills (Drills and skills)

Telling athletes what to do “ You have to look at the defense before

you serve”

Focus on a drill from the past “ We just did that drill 5 minutes ago;

why don’t you know what to do?”

Expect better decision- making skills without changing how to teach them within the context of a game

Kick the team out of practice and bring them back the next day to run them for not listening.

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