Age appropriate learning is a vital consideration in coaching and positive player development. Children and adolescents aren’t just ‘small adults’. Understanding the various differences in learning processes that exist between the age groups gives coaches and managers the knowledge they need to be most effective.
Understanding the differences in the thinking processes of different age groups is the natural starting point in helping coaches choose the appropriate technical and tactical activities needed to meet individual players’ needs. The process that a coach may adopt needs to reflect the level of participation within the sport and to meet the developmental needs of the player.
If we look at the changing cognitive characteristics in a player, from childhood through to adolescence, it’s obvious just how differently the various age groups think.
Cognitive characteristics
Players at 4–8 years old:
- Are sensitive to criticism
- Have short concentration spans
- Enjoy games
- Have no awareness of space
- Enjoy being successful and like being told they’re doing well
Players at 9–12 years old:
- Are critical about themselves
- Are critical about others
- Can start to solve problems on the field
- Become competitive
Players at 13–15 years old:
- Like to find their own solutions and value presenting their own ideas
- Have longer concentration spans – are ready for more in-depth learning
- Are capable of complex problem solving
- Develop their own language, for example using teen slang
- Have sense of invincibility
- Begin to value goal-setting based on feelings of personal needs and priorities
- Tend to be self-focused
- May lack understanding of their abilities and talents
- Begin to demonstrate moral thinking and appreciate values
- Are capable of informed decision-making and appreciate leadership roles.
The differences between the age groups are clearly significant, and so if a coach addresses these considerations it will hold them in good stead to create positive development environments.
South Korea vs Uruguay at the Danane Nations Cup, for 10-12 year olds. Photo: danonenationscup
It is common in most sports that over-zealous and somewhat excitable coaches attempt to manipulate a younger player’s learning by using complex training activities – activities that one would expect to see in a professional football club or national representative team training for a pinnacle event. However, perhaps this isn’t surprising when historically coaching behaviour has been largely based on tradition, intuition and mirroring the type of coaching received when the coach was a player.
…historically coaching behaviour has been largely based on tradition, intuition and mirroring the type of coaching received when the coach was a player.
This ‘traditional’ coaching method creates problems, however, in terms of player development. The physical changes that take place in children and adolescents are more noticeable and somewhat less scary than the changes to social/emotion and cognitive traits. Physical characteristics are more easily measured and therefore easier to evaluate, and so they’re often the criteria used to define the success of a particular coaching approach. In contrast, confidence, decision-making and learning are more difficult to measure, especially in a complex game like football. The concept of the child or adolescent being a person first and a football player second has been to a degree lost on these traditional coaches.
Basic needs theory suggests that the feelings of confidence, interconnections and freedom to determine ones actions (what to do or how to do it) are essential ingredients for growth and development.
Behavioural Science is opening many doors and offering a wealth of empirical evidence for coaches to reflect on how they may best deliver the messages they so passionately wish to get across to their players.
Ward, Hodges, Williams & Starkes identified that 16-year-old footballers attending Premier League Academies are likely to amass more than 7,000 hours of specific practice activities (i.e. under the guidance of a significant other/ coach). This considerable investment in time is most likely a result of highly motivated individuals with a strong commitment for improvement. But somewhere along this journey the individual has to be nurtured by coaches that understand what it is that the players need to enhance learning, and their basic psychological needs.
There are a number of practical coaching tools a coach can use to meet the learning needs of their players. Of these tools, it is: Teaching Games for Understanding, Guided Discovery and The Constraints-led Approach which are, in the author’s eyes, the ‘Holy Trinity’ of any coaching bible. Let’s explore each in more detail.
Teaching Games for Understanding
Let the game be the teacher. Small sided games are a fantastic medium for Teaching Games for Understanding. Players learn the game within the game, not in an artificial environment of lining up and completing drills, and the game is presented as a real situation. This increases engagement and buy-in. Increasing the number of goals will help the players identify the need for different movement patterns, while uneven player numbers (i.e. 2v1, 3v2, 4v3) may give the team with more players the opportunity to be under less pressure if you’re trying to enhance keeping possession. Teaching Games for Understanding helps the players determine what to do and how to do it.
Young players train in a small-sided game, New Zealand
Guided Discovery
Guided Discovery helps players work out technical or tactical faults by being asked insightful questions by a coach and then guided into finding alternatives to the particular football problem. Questions are asked like ‘Tell me what you see?’, ‘Show me where the opposition are standing?’, or ‘If you passed the ball through that gap what could Johnny do to get the ball?’. These questions lead players to identify where the opposition are standing in relation to the ball and team mates, where the gaps are and the potential lines to pass. It may also lead to Johnny and his teammates working out what they need to do off the ball in order to receive the pass. This all takes place without the coach giving explicit instruction. Players retain this information by thinking, acting and reflecting on their answers. Even if their answers aren’t what the coach may initially expect, a good coach will let them try it out to demonstrate its effectiveness – or lack thereof. This nurtures and accelerates creative play.
The Constraints-led Approach
The Constraints-led Approach is a system in which the coach looks to influence the task, the performer and environmental constraints to guide the players into exploring appropriate solutions to these constraints or barriers. For example, changing the rules of the activity may bring out a particular movement, action or skill; the size of the pitch may influence how much time and space a player has to make a particular decision; and introducing a futsal ball into training can manipulate how the players control the ball.
Learning styles
Alongside these three tools lies a simple premise: coach the child not the sport. If a coach gives equal status to the cognitive and social/emotional aspects of their players as they do to the physical and technical/tactical aspects, then the players remain more motivated to perform, or at least participate.
Alongside these tools lies a simple premise: coach the child not the sport.
A younger player’s mindset is a key driver for how they’ll react to being coached and, more importantly, will regulate their ability to understand the meaning behind the activities presented to them by the coach. Key to a player’s mindset is their learning style.
As individuals we learn information in a number of ways apart from the words spoken by a coach or a significant other. In the education system, teachers have used different learning approaches based on individual learning styles for a number of years; however, in sport coaching it hasn’t been so popular. A learning style is the way in which an individual begins to concentrate, process, and remember new or difficult information and skills.
Examples of learning styles include:
- Visual (by seeing)
- Auditory (by hearing)
- Reflective (by reflecting on or thinking about)
- Kinaesthetic (by doing)
It is important to acknowledge that people don’t learn through one method alone and it’s a good idea for a coach to introduce a number of activities to address the different learning styles. A great challenge for coaches is to design a session to include activities whereby the players see, hear about, do and reflect on what may have taken place. Then coaches should look to facilitate different strategies in a way that the child/ adolescent or adult may best relate to.
…people don’t learn through one method alone and it’s a good idea for a coach to introduce a number of activities to address the different learning styles.
An individual’s motivation to learn often increases when they understand the connection of your coach message (relatedness), when they’re given the opportunity to have a say on what takes place (autonomy) and they know that they’re performing to their level of appropriateness (competence).
As coaches we’re always looking to provide the individual with the best tools to perform at whatever level they wish to. Deciding what the appropriate tools are, will ease most, not all, frustrations when coaching and will definitely increase the quality of experiences for the individual.
Author: Dwayne Woolliams
Cover Image:
Boys in Bhutan play football in traditional costumes Photo: © Anandoart | Dreamstime.com
