Abstract
Objectives
Three main goals were addressed in this research. First, we tested the claims of two cognitive mechanisms that have been proposed to explain expert performance. This was done during assessment and intervention phases of decision making. Second, we tested the validity of an online test of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer: The Online Assessment of Strategic Skill In Soccer (OASSIS). Third, we compared the OASSIS to other predictors of skill in soccer.
Design
Over the course of a three-part experiment, participants completed an updated version of the option-generation paradigm employed by Ward, Ericsson, and Williams (2013), the OASSIS, and a battery of other cognitive tests. Performance on these tests was used to inform theory and validate the OASSIS as an applied tool for domain professionals.
Methods
NCAA Division 1 and recreational-level soccer players completed a battery of tests, both using paper/pencil (see Ward et al., 2013) and online.
Results
Support for Long Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; see Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) was observed during both phases of decision making, though the prescriptions of the Take-The-First heuristic (see Johnson & Raab, 2003) tend to hold, particularly within intervention phase. When used to predict skill-group membership, the OASSIS accounted for more variance than domain-general tests of cognition. Furthermore, scores on the OASSIS correlated with other measures of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer and the process-level predictions made by LTWM.
Conclusions
Updates to our theoretical understanding of expert performance are provided and the validity of the OASSIS is demonstrated.
Three main goals were addressed in this research. First, we tested the claims of two cognitive mechanisms that have been proposed to explain expert performance. This was done during assessment and intervention phases of decision making. Second, we tested the validity of an online test of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer: The Online Assessment of Strategic Skill In Soccer (OASSIS). Third, we compared the OASSIS to other predictors of skill in soccer.
Design
Over the course of a three-part experiment, participants completed an updated version of the option-generation paradigm employed by Ward, Ericsson, and Williams (2013), the OASSIS, and a battery of other cognitive tests. Performance on these tests was used to inform theory and validate the OASSIS as an applied tool for domain professionals.
Methods
NCAA Division 1 and recreational-level soccer players completed a battery of tests, both using paper/pencil (see Ward et al., 2013) and online.
Results
Support for Long Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; see Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) was observed during both phases of decision making, though the prescriptions of the Take-The-First heuristic (see Johnson & Raab, 2003) tend to hold, particularly within intervention phase. When used to predict skill-group membership, the OASSIS accounted for more variance than domain-general tests of cognition. Furthermore, scores on the OASSIS correlated with other measures of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer and the process-level predictions made by LTWM.
Conclusions
Updates to our theoretical understanding of expert performance are provided and the validity of the OASSIS is demonstrated.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 45-59 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Psychology of Sport and Exercise |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 15 Aug 2014 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2015 |
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Cite this
Belling, P. K., Suss, J., & Ward, P. (2015). Advancing theory and application of cognitive research in sport: Using representative tasks to explain and predict skilled anticipation, decision-making, and option-generation behavior. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16(1), 45-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2014.08.001