Psychomotor Domain

Psychomotor skills are classified under unspecified number of types. They range from simple skills that don’t require many muscles (organs/senses) to be used, the skills that many muscles are used, and circulation skills that requires a body-to-body activity. 

What's a skill:

·      The ability to perform kinesthetic activity in an easy, precise, harmonious way with the constant changing circumstances. This requires three elements in the skill:

• Sensing

• Precision (accuracy) 

• Time

·      There are some features that help constructing the main characteristics of a ‘skill’:

• Time of training

• Systematic Practice

• Experience

• Quality of performance

• Repetition

• Complex tasks (play a musical instrument)

·      Three main characteristics of a ‘skill’:

• Response chains: (muscle movements, stimuli/response)

• Mutual kinesthetic collaboration: (organs of movement and organs of sensing)

• Response patterns: (organizing the stimuli and response chains in a bigger patterns which requires learning the sub-category of the skill)

Classification of

Psychomotor Domain (Simpson 1972)

 Perception

Concerned with the use of the sense organs to obtain cues that guide motor activity. Ranges from sensory stimulation (awareness of stimulus), through cue selection (selecting task-relevant cues), to translation (relating cue perception to action in a performance)

 Set

Readiness to take a particular type of action. It includes mental set (mental set to act), physical set (physical readiness to act), and emotional set  (willingness to act). Perception is prerequisite for this level. 

Guided Response

Includes imitation (repeating an act demonstrated by teacher) and trial and error (using a multiple-response approach to identify an appropriate response). Adequacy of performance is judged by an instructor or by a suitable set of criteria. There is an actual doing of the skill (after-readiness stage).

Mechanism

Concerned with performance acts where the learned responses have become habitual and the movements can be performed with some confidence and proficiency. Learning outcomes are concerned with performance skills of various types, but the movement patterns are less complex.

Complex Overt Response

Skillful performance of motor acts that involve complex movement patterns. Proficiency is indicated by a quick, smooth, accurate performance, requiring a minimum of energy. This category includes resolution of uncertainty (without hesitation) and automatic performance (movements are make with ease and good muscle control). Highly coordinated motor activities are included in the learning outcomes.) 

Adaptation

Concerned with skills that are so well developed that the individual can modify movement patterns to fit special requirements or to meet a problem situation.

Origination

Creating new movement patterns to fit a particular situation or specific problem. Learning outcomes at this level emphasize creativity based upon highly developed skills.