Ecological Task Analysis and Movement

Researchers, coaches, teachers, and rehabilitation specialists will welcome a new paradigm for incorporating more empowerment and decision-making responsibilities into learning motor skills with Ecological Task Analysis and Movement. This book presents the Ecological Task Analysis (ETA) model, which offers strategies for replacing authoritarian practices by promoting student choice and an empowerment approach to learning. The text not only helps researchers design methodologically sound studies to test ETA principles, but it also shows practitioners how to apply these principles in coaching, teaching, or therapy.

This ground-breaking book honors and advances an approach to understanding human movement developed in the 1990s by Allen Burton and Walter Davis, and this book is dedicated to Burton's memory. The ETA model is believed to be more efficacious than the categorical approach in special education and adapted physical activity, the teacher-directed approach in physical education, and the prescriptive approach in the therapies—all of which dominate today. Unlike the others, the ETA model provides insight into the dynamics of movement behavior by examining the interacting constraints of performer, environment, and task. It encourages empowerment, which increases students' intrinsic motivation and self-confidence and improves their performance while decreasing problem behaviors.

In keeping with the ETA belief, there is no one best way to execute a particular motor skill; rather, movement form and outcomes are determined by goals, context, and individual constraints that continually change. To help readers use this knowledge, chapters in the book illustrate how these principles can guide and be tested through research and how practitioners can apply them in physical education and therapy settings. The authors provide real-life examples and scenarios so that practitioners will discover how to implement the ETA model more effectively within various settings. Key points or instructional strategies are also highlighted in a bulleted list at the end of each chapter to help teachers, coaches, and therapists more effectively apply the model to their work.

The theories on which ETA is based have had a revolutionizing impact in biology, psychology, evolution, and human movement science. Ecological Task Analysis and Movement describes that impact and encourages its growth in research, teaching, coaching, rehabilitation, and other settings. This book

- illustrates the strategies for conducting empirical work within the ETA framework;

- provides examples of how researchers and instructors have applied procedures outlined in the ETA applied model to assessment, instruction, and research;

- offers strategies for practitioners to replace authoritarian practices with those that give students and patients decision-making responsibilities; and

- inspires and challenges readers to apply the practice of empowerment to teaching, coaching, and treatment.
Ecological Task Analysis and Movement connects philosophy, theory, research, and practice. It challenges those in the field to understand and apply ETA principles to create more inclusive settings and greater cooperation between groups and individuals within groups. This book encourages readers to understand, discuss and debate, borrow from and fully use, and critique and further develop the ETA model.

Walter E. Davis, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Exercise, Leisure, and Sport at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Dr. Davis worked with Allen Burton in originating the Ecological Task Analysis theoretical and applied models, and he implemented the applied model in his teaching lab. He has extended the theoretical model from its focus on biological systems to a focus on social systems, and he has continued to expand on the empowerment aspect of the model in both teaching and writing.

Dr. Davis has edited two books and written nine chapters for edited books. He has published more than 30 journal articles and given nearly 70 national and international presentations. He is currently involved in a grant on democracy and education and further developing an empowerment model for education and society.

Dr. Davis has been active in the International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, the International Society for Ecological Psychology, the International Society for the Systems Sciences, and the North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity (NAFAPA). He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Research Achievement Award from the National Consortium of Physical Education Recreation and Dance (now known as the National Consortium for Physical Education and Recreation for Individuals with Disabilities). He also gave a scholar lecture for the Research Consortium at AAHPERD and gave the keynote address at a NAFAPA convention.

Geoffrey D. Broadhead, PhD, is a professor in the School of Exercise, Leisure, and Sport at Kent State University. Dr. Broadhead has worked in secondary schools in England, a teacher education college in Scotland (now the Institute of Education of Edinburgh University), and in two major universities in the United States. He also has extensive leadership experience, having coordinated university special education and physical education programs and having been a university academic dean.

Dr. Broadhead was a physical education teacher of at-risk children in two schools in England. His research activities over many years have centered on the movement characteristics of individuals with disabilities, the interrelationships of movement and behavioral skills in young children, the efficacy of school physical education programs, and the special education advocacy area of what is now called inclusion. Funds from state, federal, and private sources have supported much of his academic and professional interests.

Dr. Broadhead has coauthored one book and coedited another. He has published more than 80 papers in journals in the United States and Europe and has made almost 90 presentations at national and international conferences. He founded the journal Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, served as its editor for eight years, and is now editor emeritus. He has awards from the English Speaking Union, the Fulbright Commission, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, and the National Consortium for Physical Education and Recreation for Individuals with Disabilities.