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The Importance of Skill Development in Sports
Isaiah Hill
SMGT 520: Understanding Research in Sport, Recreation, and Tourism
Department of Hospitality & Sports Management
Dr. Jeffrey Briggs
August 6, 2023
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Abstract and keywords
This paper touches on the importance of kill development in sports and has various areas
that shed light on the different aspects of such significance. It thus relates these aspects to the
importance of skill development in sports as it strives to provide more information for better
comprehension to the readers. The main focus might not always lie on skill improvement (Otte et
al., 2019). Some keywords include skill development, knowledge transfer, and sports
management.
Introduction
Skill development in sports requires a set of activities that the athletes have to complete
so that they can master the skills they are working on and also later use them in life and sports.
Plenty of the abilities needed to excel in sports are also applicable in other spheres of existence
(Hardcastle et al., 2015). The body has neurons that assist these athletes in developing these
skills by recognizing and keeping information and knowledge concerning the athletes' movement
patterns. Thus this influences the athletes' coaching and retention of knowledge as they work
together with their coaches. These athletes have to engage in many practices so that their bodies
can recognize these patterns and master the new skills for current and future use. The athletes
have to undergo four stages as they seek to develop new skills. Initially, they have to go through
the cognitive stage whereby they learn about the basic uncoordinated and slow movements as
they start developing the new skill. It is possible to acquire an efficient variability that gives the
structure elasticity and enables it to respond to disturbances (Wilson et al., 2008). They also get
feedback to ascertain that they are doing everything right, including the proper movements of the
body. In the association stage, these athletes integrate all the movements as they strive to engage
in numerous practices and get used to them. In such cases, the efforts that these athletes have to
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put more practice whereby they have to train their cognition through more practice since they
have already known how to make the proper or accurate movements. The last stage is the
autonomous stage, whereby the athletes only need minimal attention since they have adequately
learned the skill, and thus, they have mastered the movements their bodies perceive as natural
and no longer struggle with these movements. Therefore, these athletes can shift their attention to
other sports activities, like working with other teammates as a team or playing with them and
incorporating the new skill into these interactions. Athletes participating in collaborative sports
must execute the necessary playing skills (Gabbett et al., 2011). Skill development in sports is
essential as it allows the athletes to reach their expected potential through the assistance of their
coaches, who set for them appropriate goals that they achieve as they upscale from one level to
another. Therefore, this paper will relate the significance of skill development in sports to other
aspects like knowledge transfer and practitioner research.
Discussion of key terms
Sport Management
It refers to blending the evaluating, leading, organizing, and planning skills in physical
activity and sports. It, therefore, involves managing the business-related functions that the
recreation and sports companies contain. Thus this includes evaluating, leading, budgeting,
controlling, directing, organizing, and planning in these companies.
Sports
It refers to the competitive activities of the participants whose motivations are directed by
extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, and they utilize complicated physical skills. Therefore, there is a
rivalry between two or more parties, and one party has to emerge victorious at the end based on a
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set of rules and guidelines that these parties have to adhere to as they play. Races and historical
data are used to identify winners (Nam et al., 2022).
Skill Development
It refers to pinpointing the gaps existing in one's skills and creating a plan that hones
them. Through developing skills, athletes can learn new skills and body movements as they
improve their sportsmanship. It incorporates athletic ability, perceptual development, and team
sports behavior (Vaughan et al., 2021).
Knowledge Transfer
It refers to the transmission of knowledge and information between entities, with the
entity lacking or having less knowledge benefiting from the informed entity. Knowledge transfer
in sports often involves the coaches collaborating with the athletes and ensuring that they learn
new things and skills by instructing them.
Application and future integration
Relationship Between Knowledge Transfer And The Significance Of Skill Development
There are various ways of transferring knowledge which thus connects and relate to the
significance of skill development. Coaches always want their players and athletes to have the
best possible skills and performances as they engage in their various sporting activities, and such
is possible in many ways, including ensuring that they engage them in knowledge transfer.
Therefore as the coaches work with their athletes, they sometimes give them verbal remarks
known as explicit instruction, where these coaches instruct these players or athletes on what to
do or how to act. The explicit method incorporates the purposeful training on life abilities
(Camiré et al., 2022). Therefore such involves these coaches ensuring that these players are
aware of the coaches' thoughts, which are the knowledge they already possess and which they
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transfer to these players or athletes through such instruction. Therefore these athletes often get
good knowledge from their coaches through such instruction, which thus provides them with the
appropriate feedback on their activities in sports and makes them better. Therefore, These
athletes can utilize and apply the feedback they receive from their coaches through explicit
instructions and have better performance since these coaches monitor how these athletes play
and are therefore aware of the various weaknesses they possess or portray as they play.
These athletes can thus benefit in various ways from the feedback they receive from their
coaches. Some of these benefits include increased consistency and the increased precision of the
athletes as they conduct their skills and make specific movement patterns. Therefore in skill
development and knowledge transfer between the coaches and the athletes, these athletes are
primarily passive, and the coaches are active as they are more inclined to give these athletes
instructions and guidelines, and thus, these athletes have to abide by and follow these
instructions for the better. These coaches, therefore, have to know certain things as they give
their athletes the instructions to follow. Some of these include the impacts of methods and
timings of feedback on the effectiveness of the athletes, the necessary information to assist the
athletes in making proper changes, the reasons for the alteration of the athletes' performances
from the expected standards, and the appearance of the deal athletes' skill performance.
Therefore these athletes can have better skills and learn new skills from their coaches through
these explicit instructions and become better athletes. Thus this indicates how transferring
knowledge connects and relates to the significance of skill development.
Furthermore, transferring knowledge connects and relates to the significance of skill
development since the athletes can use various avenues to transfer knowledge from their coaches
or other good players and use such information to make them gain or better their existing skills
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and improve their performances. Therefore the coaches engage in the transfer of knowledge by
practicing whereby they ensure that they personalize the assessments of their athletes so that
these athletes can be able to track their progress in the future; they also ensure that these athletes
engage in activities that allow them to have an engagement to the same tasks while ensuring that
there are performance goals for each of these tasks. These coaches also have to ensure that they
make clear goals for these activities before exposing their athletes to them and guiding them on
how to achieve the set goals. Therefore, these athletes will be engaging in various activities
while focusing on achieving specific goals, and in the process, they get instructions from their
coaches, and knowledge transfer occurs, which makes these athletes better as they move from
achieving one goal to another. These coaches must have proper information on issuing future
practices through assessment strategies; they also have to know the optimal practice amounts and
types to use as they work together with these athletes. These coaches also should know the
appropriateness of the conditions for the athletes since they are supposed to personalize the
practice, and such means doing the practice link with the personal traits and abilities of the
athletes. Such indicates how transferring knowledge connects and relates to the significance of
skill development and how these athletes can have better skills through engaging in practice and
instruction by their coaches.
Additionally, these athletes can develop their skills when their coaches transfer their
knowledge and also assists them in developing their skills by changing the environments of the
athletes. In such cases, the athletes can develop their skills since their coaches will aid by
establishing activities that these athletes should engage in and which fit the abilities of the
athletes. Thus the coaches ensure that the athletes' abilities match their needs for improving, and
these athletes eventually benefit since they improve and improve their abilities. In such cases, the
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athletes do not get instructions from their coaches, but instead, they participate in the various
activities assigned to them by their coaches, thus providing them with avenues of engaging
emotionally, cognitively, and physically. The development of a sporting athlete’s physique and
technical skills must go hand in hand for them to succeed in sports (Milavic et al., 2019). Thus,
the coaches can transfer their knowledge to their athletes by altering the environments where
these athletes exist, which results in their success in skills development. Thus these coaches can
alter variables in such environments as the number of athletes engaging in an activity and the
field size. The environment plays a curial role in the knowledge transfer process since it
influences and affects the results of the transfer in; if the environment is not appropriate for the
transfer of knowledge and learning of these skills, the results will most likely be negative. Thus
skills development and knowledge acquisition take place smoothly in an environment whereby
there is competence in the environment, and also the athletes will have autonomy as they
participate, which translates to them having personal decision-making and contemplation, which
is essential in developing the skills. Coaches ought to attempt to exhibit behaviors that promote
autonomy (Cronin et al., 2022).
Athletes can also have better emotional and psychological development by engaging in
sports and participating in different activities. Through participating in sports, these athletes can
thus gain skills that they can apply in other areas of life and use in sports to improve their
participation and performance. Playing sports can help people build their individual skills
(Ocansey et al., 2023). Thus by gaining these new skills, these athletes will have engaged in
knowledge transfer whereby their lives transform because they apply these new skills they have
acquired from sports. Many factors influence the athletes learning of the skills and development
of these skills, including their previous experiences, their competence, the various strategies their
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coaches apply, the characteristics of the coach, and the socio-cultural environment. Therefore
coaches can transfer explicit knowledge to these athletes, which is present in sportsbooks and
training programs. Periodization is not used in skill development to schedule, track, or assess
initiatives (Farrow & Robertson, 2017). In such cases, the information can be transferred to
these athletes by their coaches through explaining since explaining them is not complex.
Therefore, the athletes will quickly understand the knowledge, memorize or contain their
knowledge within them, and later apply it in sports or daily life.
Similarly, the athletes can also experience knowledge transfer between them and their
coaches regarding tacit knowledge, which is mostly complex and has to be articulate or teach
someone. Thus these coaches can involve these athletes in shared experiences which can easily
create a bond between these parties and make the learning of tacit knowledge easier and quicker.
Sports coaches wantDto provide young athletes memorable athletic experiences (Super et al.,
2018). The possibility of learning tacit knowledge increases when these athletes and their
coaches are open-minded and participate in the training since such provides an easier time for
transferring knowledge. Also, such a knowledge transfer is facilitated more when these coaches
and their athletes learn from one another, work together, and engage in conversations. Fostering
tacit knowledge is also more probable if the athletes and their coaches use physical meetings
where they can see each other and communicate in a shared location.
Likewise, knowledge transfer occurs between the athletes and the coaches in situations
whereby these athletes can obtain specific skills from their coaches. The acquisition of life skills
may be impacted by athletic programs (Hermens et al., 2017). Such may be through these
coaches exposing their athletes to a supportive and safe environment that allows them to master
the various skills and learn new ones. These coaches can also discuss and interact with their
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athletes regarding the transfer of knowledge and skills to better comprehend and understand the
various avenues to utilize these skills, whether in life or sports. Therefore, even though these
coaches will be focusing on ensuring the success of knowledge transfer and skill development in
all of their athletes, they have to possess proper comprehension that these athletes have different
abilities and capacities Motor training researchers have typically dominated the field of skill
acquisition (Barker et al., 2022). Thus, they have to personalize these experiences so that these
athletes only access and hold the knowledge and skills within their capacities.
Integrating research skills to solve pragmatic problems
Research skills can be effective in skill development since it focuses on the various
pragmatic problems that individuals encounter, the outcomes of the inquiry, and the suggested
research questions. Therefore using research skills in such a setting necessitates that the
researcher should have some sensitivity to the political, historical, and social context. The
researcher must also determine the essence of social justice, ethics, and morality in the research
and thus consider them throughout. Therefore the researcher has to use various pluralistic
methods as they engage in the research and apply the alternative paradigms. There are various
approaches that the researcher can utilize in the research, and these include the quantitative
methods, qualitative methods, or the multi-method approach. Some situations require the
researcher to apply quantitative methods, while others push for applying qualitative methods.
There are also certain situations where the researcher has to mix these methods, and such might
be caused by the advantages and disadvantages that each method portrays.
The researcher can therefore decide to apply the positivist approach by researching sports
and the essence of skill development in sports by making a scientific and laboratory activity that
is a simulation of real-world occurrences. Such would then provide the researcher with valuable
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insights on the various research questions even though, on the other side, it may not provide
some necessary information on the things happening in the sports setting. The researcher might
also have to use constructivism by utilizing the various explanations that depend on context and
time to expound on the knowledge. Thus in such cases, the researcher can use observation
techniques by assessing the participants, interviewing the respondents, and analyzing life
histories. The respondents in such a case can be the coaches of the athletes in the sports
environment.
Moreover, the researcher can utilize the equivalent status research design whereby the
researcher might combine the quantitative and the qualitative methodologies, and there are two
faces with the initial phase results impacting the second phase. The use of the qualitative
methodology involves the application of interviews by the researcher in making the survey
measures. Another design the researcher can use is the dominant-less dominant design, whereby
the researcher can use two methods in the research, with the alternative method holding the
minor research part and the other big part being held by the dominant method. Such will be
appropriate if the researcher prefers the dominant method, but they should work with other
researchers with varied viewpoints or training. On the same note, the researcher can also get aces
to the quantitative research and qualitative interview survey data simultaneously. The researcher
can additionally use the multilevel approaches, which can be appropriate and assist them in
dealing with the various design obstacles in behavioral and social sciences and understanding
these behaviors in sports.in such cases, therefore, the researcher can consider athletes as
belonging to the various units since they always have teams, and the effectiveness of these
athletes may receive varied outcomes from the factors that each of these units experiences.
Therefore by grouping these athletes in units and groups, the researcher will be able to identify
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the similarities and the differences that the athletes from similar or different groups have and
thus make proper comparisons. The researcher can also apply multilevel research in obtaining
data from different levels, with each level representing either qualitative or quantitative data.
Thus, through such, the researcher may use a questionnaire to obtain data from different athletes
in different schools while also conducting interviews with significant parties like the athletic
directors and coaches to understand better the impacts that team interactions have on other
variables in these teams or groups. Sport players' development of everyday skills is most
positively influenced by their peers (Mossman et al., 2021). Therefore, the researcher can utilize
the data collected from the interviews with the athletic director and coach to comprehend the
athletes better.
The Application Of Research In The Workplace
Research has significance in the workplace since it creates various positive consequences.
Applying research in the workplace means that the researcher evaluates the workplace or the
issues facing the workplace while seeking scientific answers to these problems. A workplace
often has different sectors and departments; thus, applying research in the workplace can focus
on particular sectors or specific sectors. A general application of the research in the workplace
can assist the various sectors and areas, like decision-making. Therefore in the workplace,
research can focus on areas like marketing, where it collects the appropriate data and exposes the
potential issues in the products or the industry. Thus the application of research in the workplace
in the marketing area can focus on the areas like the analysis of the business trend, market
structure, estimation of the demand, market segmentation, and the evaluation of the market
potential. Other areas that the application of research in the workplace can focus on regarding
marketing are place, promotion, pricing, and the products to comprehend these better and
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improve the company's performance and productivity. Therefore the application of research in
the workplace aids companies to have better and more informed perceptions of the relevant
things happening and that impact the company.
Additionally, applying research in the workplace can assist sports companies in
determining the negative aspects of the management of sports ad also eliminating or correcting
them, thus leaving these workplaces with positive aspects, which results in creating changes and
having better sports management in these workplaces. The researcher should also consider using
the sociological perspectives as they can boost the sports workplaces and use proper research
approaches, thus aiding in identifying the various systemic challenges that the workplace
encounters while also providing opportunities for solution-seeking, which can result in better
workplaces. Such application of research should focus on areas like the workplace power
structures that people have been taking seriously, and thus, the researcher can have a better
comprehension of the improvements that these systems require, the oppressive nature and the
exclusivity of these systems. In the sports workplace, such can aid in the determination of the
concept of maximization, whereby the workplace can offer sports resources and programming to
many individuals.
Practitioner Research And Professional Development
In skills development in sports, practitioner research is essential in comprehending real-
world experiences as people encounter them, and such also applies in sports where practitioner
research aids in understanding various sports-related things. Therefore practitioner research
involves the practitioner seeking comfort in uncomfortable situations and, therefore, can provide
the practitioner with avenues of understanding the things that seem confusing and the doubts that
the practitioner might be experiencing. Therefore the practitioner has to embrace the new ways
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of thinking and move away from the old ones so that the new way of thinking ways can become
dominant over the traditional or old ways of thinking.
Therefore, the various practitioners in sports can engage in practitioner research to
identify the various areas that they are responsible for to know the impacts or effects of their
practice on these areas. Thus the environment where the practitioner usually works and the
practitioner have interaction during the research, and in the event, the practitioner assesses the
various strengths and weaknesses of their practice so that they can improve them and become
better at what they do. Typically, there is always a direct connection between the users, like
athletes, and the practitioners, like sports coaches, as these practitioners engage in their practices.
Through engaging in practitioner research, sports coaches can pinpoint incognito issues, have
better intervention in their practices, and better comprehend the framing of questions, research
process, and research methods. These practitioners, like the coaches, always participate in
practitioner research at an internal level which thus allows them to improve through self-
reflection as the research focuses more on them, and they also learn more. Therefore the
presence of practitioner research is because the practitioner is interested in determining the
solutions to the challenges they face. For example, practitioners like sports coaches might
encounter challenges in making their athletes reach their full potential or learn specific skills.
Thus these coaches might indulge in practitioner research to determine how to get these athletes
to these perfect conditions or master new skills and increase their performance. In such a case,
the coaches have to engage in self-reflection and determine the root of the problems and the
potential applicable solutions to these problems so that they may aid these athletes in reaching
these expected standards.
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Therefore the coach or the practitioner can describe, analyze and identify the challenges
that they encounter, and they manage to do such by borrowing from different perspectives to
have a deeper comprehension of the issues. These coaches also have to incorporate previous
research on their practitioner research so that they can assist them in their professional
development. These coaches also can determine the various relationships between the causative
agents and other variables that might be causing the changes and affecting the outcomes.
Knowing such is essential since the coaches or practitioners in sports can know the effects that
the variables have on each other and thus can direct their actions as they collaborate with their
athletes to have better performance and skills development. Such highlights the connections
between the outcomes and the various actions which eventually cause these outcomes, and the
coaches can know which actions to alter in which ways to have different desired outcomes.
Furthermore, the sports coaches or practitioners will utilize various practitioner research
methods, like qualitative or quantitative, or use both simultaneously. It is possible for the
coaches engaging in practitioner research to obtain several different views of the challenges
when using both approaches. Also, different instruments can be applied by the coaches engaging
in the practitioner research, and some include observation, questionnaires, interviews, and
various primary sources to get the appropriate data which can aid them in better comprehending
their professionalism and practices in sports.
The Desired Internship And The Disciplinary Connections From This Internship And
Others To The Internship Site As A Place Of Experiential Learning
The desired internship is working as a coaching intern, and such an opportunity provides
an avenue to learn more about coaching practices and how the coaches use various strategies to
increase the performance of the athletes. Such is an opportunity to put the lessons learned in this
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course into practice and utilize the various concepts and theories for better comprehension. It
also provides more opportunities for experiential learning to obtain mastery through practice
which can easily translate to converting theoretical concepts into practical concepts and ideals.
Summary/Conclusion
From the above evaluation, it is evident that skill development is essential, and the paper
has highlighted the various ways through which such is true. The athletes often require the
assistance of their coaches to reach their potential and move in the right direction, and such also
involves skill development where these coaches can guide them and set goals for them. The
coaches constantly interact with their athletes, and through such knowledge, transfer occurs as
these coaches provide explicit instructions to their athletes, and these athletes abide by these
instructions to make good use of their abilities and learn more. Through knowledge transfer,
these athletes learn new skills they can use in their sporting activities or general life, which is a
bonus since it might save them someday. The coaches can also monitor their practices by
engaging in practitioner research, which allows them to identify the weak areas that they need to
improve on, pinpoint the areas that cause problems, and provide the necessary solutions.
Therefore it is undisputed that skills development in sports is essential in every way as the
coaches and their athletes gain.
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