Concentration

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Concentration
The beginner is likely to lose their concentration quicker than the advanced player (Kuzmin et al, 2016), meaning most students are likely to lose their attention during a game at least once. Losing the students attention can be due to a number of aspects, such as feature integration, visual cues, bottleneck theory, limited resource theory or central resource theory. Although the concentration of students on the game is easy to observe, it is difficult to analyse and assess why they lost their concentration. It is also difficult to teach as other aspects can draw their attention away from the game, such as a bird flying past the window. To try and reduce the other aspects, the teacher can create small habits to regain their attention, for example in clips one and three, the USA team serve with one hand in the air as they run up. This simple feature can be used, not necessarily in the clips but with students, to block out the crowds to give a narrow focus primarily on the serve. Clip two demonstrates central resource theory, where the two team members jump up to stop the ball, but the information was not processed quick enough where the other members were not able to return the ball. This was due to the left member accidentally hitting the ball backwards, the brain was not quick enough to process this to move the body towards the ball. To avoid this, students could be taught to focus on the ball rather than the movements of others. This allows the information to be processed while maintaining attention on the ball. The end of clip three demonstrates bottleneck theory where the information is trying to be processed but is getting stuck at some point. This is shown when the Dominican Republic team member runs to return the ball, stops her run, runs, and stops again to avoid a collision. This is hard to teach students, but they could be taught at the start to have sections and they are responsible for their section. Although this can teach students to stay still and wait for the ball, modify the rule by yelling “switch” during game play to which students switch sections with others to encourage movement. To assess concentration, play a regular game of volleyball and tally next to their name on a table how many times the students lose focus for longer than ten seconds. To assess further, write down in a notes section at what times the student loses focus, for example when the ball is in the opposing teams half. To analyse further, play a modified game of continuous volleyball, where only two players are allowed on the court at one time and have to run off the court after they hit it, and conduct the same tally system as the previous activity. The teacher can then compare the concentration levels of the students and see if they lose concentration more in regular games or modified games, which can then inform teaching and learning.

References:
Gréhaigne. J R, Richard, J.F. and Griffin. (2005) Teaching & Learning Team Sports and Games. RoutledgeFalmer, New York.
Kuzmin, V, A., Kopylov, Y., Kudryavtsev, M, D., Tolstopyatov, I., Galimov, G., Ionova, O. (2016). Formation of professionally important qualities of students with weakened motor fitness using a health related and sport-oriented training program. Journal of Physical Education & Sport, 16(1), 136–145.

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