Expert-Novice Differences in Performance Skills and Problem Representations of Youth and Adults during Tennis Competition

Abstract

Expert and novice tennis players selected from three different age groups (i.e., 10-11 years, 12-13 years, and collegiate adults) were examined for differences in performance skills (i.e., behavioral analyses of video recordings) and problem representations (i.e., verbal report analyses of tape recordings) during matched competition. Factorial analyses of variance on behavioral measures indicated that experts' performances exhibited higher levels of decision and execution than novices, regardless of age. Kruskal-Wallis tests on verbal report measures indicated that experts generated more total, varied, and sophisticated condition and action concepts than novices. Within experts, adults accessed more sophisticated problem representations than youth. Both current event and action plan profiles guided and mediated adult experts' response selections and executions, respectively. Youth experts primarily used action plan profiles to guide their response selections. Novices, regardless of age, accessed weak problem representations.

What mental process favours quality decision-making in young soccer players?

“…In contrast, significant negative standard residuals shows that planning statements do not influence the quality of decisionmaking 25,26 . As demonstrated by studies on expertise, short term planning is based on an expert's ability to predict and foresee a result of an action he could realize 27 .…”

Procedural Knowledge, Decision Making and Performance in Women's Volleyball According to Age Group and Specific Experience

“…Previous studies have differentiated experts from novices mainly through divergences in age, years of experience, competition experience and players' ranking in their leagues [8][9][10]. In spite of the analysis of the extreme groups (i.e., experts and novices) having promoted valuable information to the research and practical domain this approach presents some limitations.…”

“…The expert-novice paradigm has been dominant in the sport expertise research [5,[7][8][9][10]. Findings indicate that the knowledge of expert players (namely classified according to their experience) in relation to the novices is larger, deeper, better planned, more structured and organized and more sophisticated.…”

“…The verbal reports were literally transcribed and a content analysis was carried out using a protocol model originally structured for tennis [8,9] and later adapted to the requirements of volleyball [17]. The units of information were classified according to five main conceptual categories: goal concepts, condition concepts, action concepts, regulatory concepts, and do concepts [8].…”

“…Although expertise is sport-specific [8,9] and, within it, function-and task-specific [15,16] research has been disregarding this important requirement. As such, it becomes important to consider experience in the specific function within the game in procedural knowledge, decision-making and game performance analysis.…”