Outcome

Tenants. With learning as the main objective, the video on this site is presented under following premises:

1. More information is not necessarily better than less (Hodges & Franks, 2004)
2. Skilled models are not necessarily better than unskilled learning models (Rose & Christina, 2006).
3. Notated video is not necessarily better than raw video. Sometimes the outcome success is not dependent on a particular strategy or technique, so demonstrations are ineffective (Hodges & Franks, 2004).
4. Accurately identifying appropriate performance indicators is a foremost concern. "A performance indicator is a selection, or combination, of action variables that aims to define some or all aspects of performance. Clearly, to be useful, performance indicators should relate to successful performance or outcome" (Hughes & Bartlett, 2004, p. 167).
5. Personal (or team) improvement is more important than relative (competitive) improvement. ". . .Success or failure in a performance is relative, either to the opposition or to previous performances of the team or individual" (Hughes & Bartlett, 2004, p. 187). When success is measured against the opposition, factors outside of one's control often define success. Instead, the focus should be on comparisons to previous performance and process goals that are more completely within one's control.
6. The material is presented with a pedagogical emphasis, to facilitate learning via a practical application of knowledge. Hughes and Bartlett (2004) recommend a collaboration among biomechanists, notational analysts, coaches, motor learning specialists, and other sports science disciplines to agree on and measure performance indicators that are important for the sport under investigation.
7. Sport performance is very complex. "The particular applications of non-dimensional analysis are common in fluid dynamics, which offers empirical clues to the solution of multivariate problems that cannot easily be solved mathematically. Sport is even more complex, the result of interacting human behaviours; to apply simplistic analyses of raw sports data can be highly misleading. . . .Many of the most important aspects of team performance cannot be 'teased out' by biomechanists or match analysts working along--a combined research approach is needed" (Hughes & Bartlett, p. 187).

Video characteristics. Consistent with the aforementioned tenants, video is presented in the various ways. This gives the viewer several media that offers different learning benefits.

Modeling types

• Skilled Model: Expert model that displays techniques of a typical elite (i.e. top 3 percentile) performer in a given sport.
• Learning Model: Subject that demonstrates a skill that contains several mistakes or flaws in technique.

Video types

• Raw video: Unedited video sequence.
• Notated video
• Quantitative data added
• Selective attentional focus: e.g. highlights, drawings, magnify boxes
• Speed controlled

Modeling. While examining models performing a sport skill, one should attempt to focus on the critical kinematic variables that will most contribute to optimizing performance. "By 'optimisation' we mean an interplay between variables that are maximised, minimised, or tuned to a criterion defined as a set of kinematic and/or dynamic equations of constraint" (Liebermann & Franks, 2004, p. 44). These are model algorithms to serve as a comparison between real and optimised performances. "Feedback about the differences between expected (modeled) and observed results (obtained, for example, from videotape analysis) could be used to change the technique and to perform closer to the model" (p. 44).

It is important that the athlete to focus on the key differences between a criterion movement pattern and the one that was actually completed. Franks (2004) outlines several issues in this comparison process:

1. The criterion performance should be a model movement pattern.
2. The angle of viewing must be from a position that can pick up key points in the movement pattern. Several simultaneous recordings are preferable.
3. There should be a relatively short time delay between the performance and viewing, and also between viewing and performing again.
4. The athlete should have control over functions like slow motion, pause, and replay to allow them to analyze the performance at their own pace.
5. The athlete must have some method of identifying the errors in order that changes can be made on subsequent attempts. (p. 11-12)

Advantages. Providing sport video online offers many advantages:

• Playback control: Pause, slow motion, and frame advance are examples of features that the user has control over to examine the motion.
• Repetition: Looping or continuous repeat is a feature in many video players that allows multiple repetitions of the video clip. This is a recommended video-based learning technique by Rink (2006) and Liebermann and Franks (2004).
• Convenience: Subjects and coaches can view the video on their own time, at their own convenience.
• Historical reference: Video can be maintained online for several years to provide a comparison for a single subject's changes over time.
• Multiple subject comparison: Users can select different subjects to play side by side. Liebermann and Franks recommended a split computer screen comparison, synchronized, and fitted to each other and appropriately transformed (scaled, translated, and rotated).