Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia
Abstract
The amount of time participants spend successfully engaged with skill content has been found to have a high correlation with skill learning and achievement. For children to learn motor skills it is clear that they must be provided with sufficient opportunities to exhibit skill responses, during practice and game sessions. For this to occur, activities must be designed to cater for the developmental requirements of the children, whilst maintaining high levels of active involvement for all participants. In response to these needs, basketball and netball associations have employed modifications to game structures. This study provides a descriptive analysis of junior basketball and netball settings, with a specific focus on the rates of successful motor skill engagement achieved by participants of different skill abilities, in coach directed practice sessions and game play situations. The behaviours of high and low skilled basketball and netball participants playing in modified (under 10 age) and full game designs (under 12 age), were observed and recorded, for the purpose of comparison, during four practice and four game sessions using two systematic observation instruments: (a) Revised Academic Learning Time - Physical Education/ Sport, (ALT -PE/SPORT), which measures time spent by participants in process behaviours (b) Revised Systematic Observation of Student Opportunities to Respond (SOSOR), which measures the rates of specific skill occurrence by an individual in a sport session. A high degree of success in skill performance during game and practice sessions for high and low skilled players in under 10 and 12 basketball and netball was found, indicating that the equipment and rules used in both sports suits the physical requirements of the participants, and that modifying equipment for the under 10 participants has been warranted. Despite this, greater attention must be paid to adapting rules in junior basketball and netball to promote greater equity in participation for participants of differing skill levels and in developing coach expertise in providing high levels of successful skill response opportunities during practice sessions
