Skill Classification Continua
A skill is not filed in a box, it sits at a point on a line, and it moves along that line when the situation changes. Three continua on this board, and two more that everybody has heard of and that earn you nothing here.
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Three continua, and only three 🎯
On this specification a skill is classified on **three** continua: **Open to closed** - how much the environment affects the skill. **Basic (simple) to complex** - how many decisions the performer has to make. **Low organisation to high organisation** - how easily the skill breaks into separate parts. ⚠️ **You will have heard of two others, and they are not on this board.** Gross against fine, and self-paced against externally paced, belong to another exam board's specification. They turn up constantly in revision guides and videos, and writing about them here earns nothing at all. If a question asks you to classify a skill, it wants one of the three above. **And note the word: continua.** Not categories. A skill sits at a point on a line.
What each continuum measures 🗂️
Five terms. The last one is what the third continuum is really about:
Match each term to what it means
- Open
- Closed
- Complex
- High organisation
- the environment keeps changing, so the performer has to adapt as they go
- the environment is predictable and the performer chooses when to begin
- a lot of information to take in and a lot of decisions to make while doing it
- the parts flow into one another and cannot easily be practised separately
It is a line, not a box 📏
This is the idea the word continuum exists to carry, and it is where the marks are. **A skill is not open OR closed.** It sits somewhere between the two, and saying where - and why - is the answer. "A football pass is an open skill" names it. "A football pass sits towards the open end, because the defenders are in different positions every single time\" justifies it, and only the second one is doing the work. **A skill can also MOVE along the continuum.** A basketball free throw in an empty gym is about as closed as a skill gets. The same throw, with two seconds left and a crowd behind the hoop, has moved towards the open end, because the performer now has far more to deal with. **Next you will see a continuum with nothing written on it.** The line runs from **completely closed on the left** to **completely open on the right**, and the two ticks divide it into thirds.
Where does this one sit? 👆
An interactive activity.
Two answers, one mark between them ❓
A question asks you to classify a rugby tackle on the open-closed continuum and give a reason. Which answer scores best?
- Towards the open end, because the ball carrier changes speed and direction and the tackler must adapt to what they do
- It is an open skill
- Towards the closed end, because the tackler decides when to commit to the tackle
- It is a gross, externally paced skill, since it uses large muscle groups and the opponent sets the timing
The one people find hardest ⚖️
Open-closed and basic-complex are fairly intuitive. Organisation is not, so here it is on its own. It asks a single question: **can this skill be broken into parts and practised piece by piece?**
Which TWO describe a closed skill? ✅
Select the TWO statements that would place a skill towards the closed end.
- The environment stays the same each time it is performed
- The performer decides when to begin, rather than reacting to something else
- The performer has very few decisions to make while doing it
- The skill uses large muscle groups and produces a powerful movement
Find the sentence that justifies 🔍
An interactive activity.
Rank them along the line 🪜
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Say it back 📝
On this specification there are _____ skill-classification continua: open to closed, basic to complex, and low to high _____. A skill sits at a point along each line rather than in a box, and it can _____ along a continuum when the situation changes. To be credited, a classification needs a _____ as well as a label. And the gross-fine and self-paced continua belong to another _____, so they earn nothing here.
Three decisions 🧭
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Your turn ✍️
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