Ecological Dynamics as an Accurate and Parsimonious Contributor to Applied Practice: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

With sport coaches adopting and working toward increasingly evidence-grounded approaches to practice, skill acquisition has appropriately become a critical area for consideration. As part of this growing interest in skill acquisition, the ecological dynamics approach has garnered attention amongst scholars and practitioners with myriad media (e.g. peer-reviewed articles, books, podcasts and social-media outputs) extolling its benefits. In doing this, however, the available guidance, advice and scholarship have typically positioned ecological dynamics as a direct competitor to existing or traditional cognitive approaches, advising against practical integration of approaches due to theoretical incompatibility. As a standalone approach, we are concerned that there are mechanistic and epistemological issues and inconsistencies that prevent experimental comparisons and limit its applicability, novelty and capability to comprehensively address real-world athlete and coach needs. Based on this, in this Current Opinion paper, we lay out these concerns and critically examine the clarity, coherence and consistency of the approach and its associated literature. In concluding, we also suggest that a more evidence-based and mechanistically driven approach that draws upon a wider set of theoretical perspectives can offer greater benefit to athletes, coaches and practitioners in real-world sport.