Contextual interference

‘The contextual interference effect is a well-established motor learning phenomenon.’ (Buszard, Reid, Krause, Kovalchik & Farrow, 2017) Contextual interference (CI) can also be small sided games vs isolated drills. Which then further narrows down to blocked vs random practice. (Hodges & Williams, 2012) Blocked practice is where one skill is learnt until mastered and random practice is learning multiple skills at the same time. Continuously, constant vs variable practice is another way on how vary up your session between high and low contextual interference. Constant practice is a skill under the same condition, where as variable practice is the same skill but with different variations.

High to Low CI analysis and comparison

Low CI can find good players with good game retention skills as the isolated drills are repeated over and over again until the skills is mastered. (Porter & Magill, 2010) therefore the good players will shine within this scenario as they’re good at doing the same skill repeatedly. However, Porter & Magill, (2010) further stated that high CI is beneficial to ‘superior retention’ players which is showing that small sided games can benefit players that have a much greater retention ability rather than within the isolated drills it only build good retention when doing a repeated activity. In addition to this, Shea and Morgan, (1979) implied that high CI benefits skilled learning rather than low CI. Continuously, Magill & Hall, (1990) small sided games can lead to poorer practice performance in comparison to isolated drills, this could be because the pressure of a small sided game could effect a player differently to a simple drill. On the other hand, Immink & Wright, (1998) suggested that results will be lower within the isolated drills in comparison with variable practices as a participant may do the same drill so many times they become and expert at it and this may not show their true skill level as with variable practice where the skill is constantly changing making it a test.

Contextual interference within football

CI in football could be passing in pairs for an isolated drill or a 6 vs 6 mini game for a small sided game. Li and Lima, (2002) stated that contextual variety did not enhance retention within football. This may show that doing a variety of different skills may not aid your retention and repeatedly doing the same skill until it is mastered may be more beneficial when wanting to retain a skills. However, this may lead to a drop in performance as if a player only focusses on one skill at a certain time then they will potentially fall behind on other necessary skills meaning they may not perform as well in a game situation.

Within a recent mini research project we compared how isolated drills (ID) and small sided games (SSG) would compare against each other by comparing the pass success rate via a game of ultimate frisbee. The group was split in half and one half did the ID and the other half did the SSG. After a period of time the groups came together and then competed in a game of ultimate frisbee and the number of successful and unsuccessful passes was counted by the researchers.

The results from ultimate frisbee showed that from the isolated drills there was more passes completed, however there was a higher pass success rate from the small sided games showing that small sided games came out on top with the highest pass success rate.

The players that did the ID might have been at a disadvantage as they was just passing back and forward to each other and they could have never played ultimate frisbee before, where as the SSG group will have had a practice just before the game meaning they game was fresh in their mind giving them the upper hand. On the other hand, the group that did the ID could have had an advantage with the fact of the research being focussed around pass success rate and they have just been practicing their passing of the frisbee which may have benefitted them as they will have been shown the proper technique on how to pass the frisbee. Furthermore, the researchers may have potentially miss counted the passes or are unsure of the correct number of successful and unsuccessful passes made. This could have been countered by having multiple researchers watching the game and from a variety of different angles to make sure every pass was calculated correctly which would have made the project more reliable.

Reference list

Buszard, T., Reid, M., Krause, L., Kovalchik, S., & Farrow, D. (2017). Quantifying contextual interference and its effect on skill transfer in skilled youth tennis players. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1931.

Hodges, N. & Williams, M. (2012) Skill Acquisition in sport: Research, theory and practice. London: Routledge

Immink, M. A., & Wright, D. L. (1998). Contextual interference: A response planning account. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 51(4), 735-754.

Li, Y. and Lima, R.P. (2002) ‘Rehearsal of Task Variations and Contextual Interference Effect in a Field Setting’, Perceptual and Motor Skills 94(3): 750–2.

Magill, R. A., & Hall, K. G. (1990). A review of the contextual interference effect in motor skill acquisition. Human movement science, 9(3-5), 241-289.

Porter, J. M., & Magill, R. A. (2010). Systematically increasing contextual interference is beneficial for learning sport skills. Journal of sports sciences, 28(12), 1277-1285.

Shea, J. B., & Zimny, S. T. (1983). Context effects in memory and learning movement information. In R. A. Magill (Ed.), Memory and control of action (pp. 345–366). New York: North- Holland.