Sports Coaching – What factors may influence a person’s learning performance
Text : Giannis Psarelis – Triathlon Coach (TRiathlon New Zeeland Level 3 Accredited Triathlon Coach) – Contact Details : smartsportcoach@hotmail.com.
The factors that can influence someone’s learning performance could be categorized as following :
Environmental Factors : Noise, temperature, humidity,… People that are feeling cold or very warm can’t learn effectively as it’s natural that they emphasize to protect the homeostasis of their body. A nice relaxed environment, with no noice, with nice smells, with fresh air and oxygen and proper temperature is the best environment for learners to relax and concentrate to the learning process. In sport coaching we notice that athletes in cold enviroenment they don’t want to stand with no moving. E.g. at a cold day or cold water athletes dislike lengthy speeches or lengthy demonstrations of new drills.
Biological. People when they feel thirsty or hungry can’t learn efficiently as their body prioritize the most important issues. People can’t learn when they are tired. We, as coaches, have to be able to adopt the learning coaching process to the level of tiredness of the athletes and to their age as well. Small kids can stay concentrated in a issue more than a couple of minutes.
Psychological. As a consequence of the above the motivation and the effective concentration time depends of the age. Each athlete participates in a sport by having different motives. In order to be able to increase the learning ability we, as coaches, should try to increase the motivation levels of our athletes.
Sociological. Some people prefer to socialize and feel much better in a group and some others when they are alone. They are young people that will not make questions while they are in a group training session and some others that they feel comfortable with that.
Physical – At the sports context it’s natural that the physical level of each participant will influence it’s learning ability. We could describe the term as physical literacy
VARK – Each person prefers to learn in a different way: visual, aural, read and write or kinaesthetic.
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