Glass and Out Sports Scientist Job Fransen: Science of skill acquisition, competence vs confidence training and trusting your intuition
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Dec 30, 2025 Job Fransen, Senior Lecturer and founder of SkillACQ, shares insights on skill acquisition in team sports. He explores the crucial differences between competence and confidence training, revealing why coaches should trust their intuition. Job emphasizes the importance of balancing both training types for optimal athlete engagement and performance. He discusses creative practice design, the role of coaches as facilitators, and the need for long-term learning versus short-term wins. Plus, he highlights innovative methods to assess learning and promote growth in athletes.
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Put Competence Practice In Preseason
- Schedule heavy competence practice far from competition, with in-season boosts of competence and mostly confidence work.
- Prioritize pre-season for variable, challenging learning despite conditioning constraints.
Learning Is Latent, Performance Is Immediate
- Performance is immediate and visible; learning is latent, durable, and inferred later.
- Coaches must prioritize long-term learning over momentary smooth performance in practice.
Measure Trials To Solve A Drill
- Track learning by counting how many reps it takes athletes to solve a problem and adjust difficulty accordingly.
- If it takes far more reps than expected, reduce task difficulty to avoid wasted frustration.
