The Effects of a Novel Adaptive Method with Task Variations of Different Inherent Task Difficulty

Practice schedule optimization is an important topic for practitioners and researchers alike. One way to optimize a practice schedule and promote motor skill learning is to adapt practice conditions to the learner. This is important as creating customized practice conditions based on the learner could provide a new way to improve skill acquisition. The literature review starts with a history of adaptive practice followed by definitions and terms relevant to this topic. Then, our current understanding of adaptive practice is overviewed by first explaining the characteristics of different methods and models, and second, introducing the practice conditions adaptively modified in motor skill acquisition research. Next, the current findings and limitations of the methods and models are discussed. Following the literature review, and to address some of the limitations from previous work, a novel method for adapting practice is presented. Last, a research experiment was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of the novel adaptive practice method on motor performance and learning.