Behaviourist approach vs Constructivist approach?

This blog is going to feed on to my previous one.

Behviourist approach through coaching is using different methods that can help change bad behaviors within your athletes. It is, ‘’a relationship between behaviour and consequences’’, (Carlson & Buckist, 1997).

Constructivist approach is more individual based where coaches can allow there athletes to learn, but they might be able to adapt things they have experienced in the past in to the present to what they are learning. ”Sees learning as a process shaped by our previous experiences to construct our own understanding”, (Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kepler, 2000)

Behaviorist approach is a great way to coach your athletes from a young age to get drilled into doing certain behaviors naturally as they get older. Which is usually done by having a stimulus in place that creates a response. This involves classical conditioning (previous blog) and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning is a natural response a character can give from previous experiences. Operant conditioning is where an athlete may be rewarded or punished for what they do.

Operant conditioning:

There are 3 main types of reinforcement 1) Positive 2) Negative 3) Punishment

Positive reinforcement – This is where a stimulus encourages a behaviour to be repeated over again, Honeybourne, J (2006)

Negative reinforcement – This is where a beahviour is influenced because of a stimulus. For example, when I was younger my mum would make me do the washing up. I did not want to do the washing up but I did it because I would not want her telling me off.

Removal or presentation Punishment – This is simply if the response is not occuring, then punishment will be something that will come in to action. Honeybourne, J (2006).

Example:

Removal – taking away something that they like. Maybe 10 mins off a students playtime if they where messing around.

Presentation – presenting them with a punishment there and then. Maybe 10 press ups.

Constructivist approach is much more letting your athletes/ participants learn with not a lot of guidance given from coach/ teachers ect. It allows them to explore what they are learning by using there past experiences to help to guide them.

I put these two approaches into practice.

I knew that when I was doing a ‘behaviourist approach’, it had to be seen through blocked practice. So, for my session i used boxing out and free throw shooting in basketball. (Positive and negative reinforcement used).

Free throw

Box out

Attatched below is the drill that was laid out for boxing out:

• 2 teams even on both side of the baseline where it meet the key area.
• 1 player from each team runs out to the top corners of the key area.
• Coach will stand at the top with a ball ready to shoot once they have reached the corners.
• As the coach shoots it is a fight for a box out and rebound.
• Main focus is to let the ball drop more than once before collecting it when boxing out.
• If you box out and get the rebound you get a point, if you do not get the box out you lose a point.
• Everyone goes 3 times each and we decide the winner through scores.

The ball in this drill was the stimulous, it replicated a shot in a game. Once a shot goes up there has to be a a box out which is the beahvior I was trying to drill the players into. If they did not do it they lost a point and whoevers team lost did sprints. (positive and negative)

Attatched below is the drill I used for free throw shooting:

• 1 player with a ball shooting 2 free throws on the line.
• Team mates are standing around the key area going clockwise waiting for there chance to shoot.
• Coach stands in referee position and gives advice.

This drill was used to intorduce positive reinforcement. It allowed the player to experience a real situation in a game where they will feel the pressure of shooting whilst having players around them. If the shot went in we all clapped, if not I would go up to the and give them some advice on what they could do better.

I then put constructivism into practice. The constructivist approach can be seen a lot through ‘random’ practice.

The very simple exercise that me and my partner did was having a bunch of cones and 6 people.

We then said, ”Balance on one leg and see how many cones you can put on your head whilst picking up one at a time”.

We had a group that understood straight away what we meant. All they did was pick the cones up one hand, each at a time, and carried them in there other hand. Until they had all of them, then they placed it on there head. Our idea was to trick them but clearly that didnt happen.

However, the whole idea of that simple exercise was to see if they could figure out in there head, how to pick them cones up and balance them on there head once at a time. A peice of research discusses constructivism and says ”It focuses on collaborative, constructive, contextual and self-directed learning” (Dochy, Segers, Van den Bossche, & Stuyven, 2005). So, clearly the group that we had, had experienced something like that before and used that experience to outminouvre us as coaches. However, if i was to do that with a younger group of children, it may take them a lot longer as they may have never experienced that before.

Now, to conlude this blog, I will refer back to the title.

Behaviourist approach vs Constructivism Approach?

Each approach has its certain needs to help develop athletes. So, if i was to argue which one is better or which one wins. The answer would be none or a draw. Not all athletes are going to respond the same. There can be many factors of that. For example, they may not like the sport that they are playing so they might not get engaged and behave well. A study that talks about involvement of athletes backs what I am saying. As it says ”involvement provides a useful means for measuring attitudes and behaviours” (Funk, Alexandris and McDonald, 2016). Using the different techniques in practice will take the athletes/ participants the extra step. Also, some may enjoy learning for themselves. Constructivism, allows the athletes/ participants to use there previous experience to help them to learn something completely new. For example, tieing a knot that they haven’t used before. I think this has a strong link to Mosstons Teaching Styles.

(Scilia-Camacho & Brown, 2008)

They can learn individually or in groups to complete a task that they have been set by themselves with next to little guidance from the teacher/ coach.

So overall, i believe that us coaches have to identify what our athletes prefer so that we can get the best out of them. That applies to everything!

Thanks for reading.

Reference list:

Carlson, N. & Buckist, W. (1997) Psychology: The Science of Behaviour. London: Allyn and Bacon.

Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2000). Engaging minds: Learning and teaching in a complex world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cited In. Light, R & Wallian, N (2008) A Constructivist-Informed Approach toTeaching Swimming., 60:3, 387-404.

Dochy, F., Segers, M., Van den Bossche, P., & Stuyven, K. (2005). Students’ perceptions of a problem-based learning environment. Learning Environments Research, 8, 41-66. Cited In. Morris, C. (2011). Social constructivism and tourism education. 10:2, 103-108.

Funk, D., Alexandris, K. & McDonald, H. (2016). Sport Consumer Behaviour.

Honeybourne, J. (2006). Acquiring skills in sport: An introduction.

Scicilia-Camacho, A. & Brown, D. (2008). Revisiting the paradigm shift from theversusto thenon-versusnotion of Mosston’s Spectrum of teaching stylesin physical education pedagogy: a critical pedagogical perspective., 13:1, 85-108.