How do Games-Based Approaches Differ from the CLA?

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.

Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. So in today's podcast episode, I'm going to take a look at the differences between a games-based approach and the CLA.

And this is something that over the years, a lot of people have confused a games-based approach for a constraint-led approach, despite the fact that they're very different methodologies. And I think we get very different results in both approaches. Now, I started as a games-based approach before I really knew what a CLA was, but I can just say that from my experience, it's very different.

And I think that a games approach is certainly more enjoyable for the players, obviously, when participating in drills. But if we are not really using constraints purposefully, From a skill adaptation standpoint, I don't really see the value to a games approach. And I don't even think, maybe this is controversial, but I don't think the value is that much greater than a traditional approach of drills.

And I think the real difference is using constraints and using the CLA well. So that's what we're going to look at today. Firstly, what even is a games approach? So it actually emerged within the 1980s in the United Kingdom. Bunker and Thorpe at Loughborough University came up with this Teaching Games for Understanding methodology, and this was originally intended for PE teachers to basically create games-based approaches within their lessons, which were more enjoyable for children at school to participate in a PE lesson and actually allowed them to problem solve better than traditional drills, etc.

So that was where a games-based approach originated from. And throughout today's episode, I'm going to refer back frequently to one research paper And I want to read segments of the paper and then describe what it means in practical terms. And that paper was written by Renshaw, Arujo, Barton, Chow, Davids, and Moy, and it's entitled Why the Constraints-Led Approach Is Not Teaching Games for Understanding: A Clarification.

And they wrote that part of the rationale for developing teaching games for understanding was that traditional approaches seem to contrast with some basic skill acquisition principles such as play, observational learning, high amounts of practice, and the failure of skill to transfer to the real game.

So obviously that shares some similarities with why we might use a CLA. And it's interesting that even in 1982, people were seeing these problems with a traditional approach. Yet here we are in 2023 with those same drills being the dominant approach within basketball.

So there is a similarity there between a games approach and the CLA. However, it's very different when we look at the actual methodology behind why games-based approaches are used and how they're actually coached by coaches, PE teachers, etc. So they typically start with some type of game where the coach designs some type of problem into the game that players have to solve.

Players will then play it, develop their game understanding, game sense, whatever you call it, develop a little bit more tactical acumen, etc. But critically, within a games approach, what we then see is a lot of instruction where coaches will still be instructing based on things that should supposedly happen, as opposed to players exploring.

And constraints typically aren't manipulated for a reason and not used frequently. So for instance, players will play the same version of the game over and over again. And this is what I see a lot of. Where coaches are using small-sided games now, but every time the coach uses that game, it's the same version of the game and the constraints aren't different.

So the outcome's obviously gonna be highly similar. And coaches typically are not observing what's happening within these games. They're just coaching the game and they're not observing and they're not thinking, all right, how could we change this situation in response to what we're actually seeing?

So what that leads to a lot within a games approach is But often coaches will then digress to isolated practice and trying to improve techniques so that players supposedly can become more effective in the game. And within a CLA, we wouldn't do that.

So we wouldn't decompose a task and go from playing a small-sided game to a technical drill. Instead, we would simplify the task through applying ideas of task simplification. So increasing the space, adding an extra offense. So maybe instead of 1-on-1, it's a 2-on-1.

Constraining the defense. So maybe they can't move as much, maybe they're holding a ball as they play defense, etc. So these are some of the first differences between both approaches. And before I really go extensively into helping highlight why a games approach is not a constraint-led approach, I do want to appreciate that there are a few similarities.

So the first one is obviously small-sided games. Within a CLA, we're making use of small-sided games. Just as what we see within a games approach. Now, obviously, how the small-sided game is coached is different, but it's still a small-sided game. So it's more similar than the differences between a traditional approach or drill and the CLA.

Secondly, learning is more implicit. For sure, we can't dispute this. Within a games approach, players absolutely learn more through a game, which is obviously similar to a CLA versus explicit instruction provided by the coach. Enjoyment. I think that's a big one. This approach is certainly far more enjoyable for players of any level.

I would also say it's more holistic because the coach is not seen as the authoritarian or the one at the center of the practice. It's a far more holistic approach to how we work with players, especially youth players, and create more of an enjoyable environment for them.

And the last one, of course, representative. It's more representative than participating in drills. So those are the similarities. But now we're gonna come on to the differences, and this is where I'm, I'm gonna lean heavily on the research paper that I referenced and bring that into examples of what I'm seeing within the basketball world.

So quote starts here. In our work with teachers and coaches, we are finding that the categorization of CLA as a games-based teaching approach is a common misapprehension, perhaps due to an early focus of the CLA on team games. Our published work in education journals has led to some educationists categorizing CLA as just another game-centered pedagogy in line with approaches such as TGFU.

So what that means, I think initially when the CLA started becoming more popular, it was widely adopted in team invasion sports. So a games-based approach was only really used in team sports because it's very different, whereas the CLA is applied to every sport, including sports with more closed environments such as diving, archery, et cetera, because we're manipulating constraints and there's a theoretical framework behind it.

Whereas with a game— within a games approach, it only ever worked for team sports and invasion games. So I think that is really interesting because it explains why maybe this topic has been misunderstood and why people have confused the differences between games-based and learning within a CLA environment.

The biggest difference for me is the CLA is informed upon an empirically verified theory in ecological dynamics. That does not exist within a games-based approach. There's actually no real theory to it. And actually, if you look at some of the early kind of papers on games-based approaches and teaching games for understanding, it's very much based on information processing theory.

Which I've alluded to in earlier episodes, that differs greatly to an ecological approach to skill acquisition. So the CLA has a lot of empirical research behind it. It's not just the coaching methodology, it accounts for movement in every sport, and it really has a lot of robust work behind it, which we can't say the same of within a games approach.

I would also say The kind of limits of a games approach only extends to coaches. So maybe athletic performance coaches could use games-based ideas in a warmup, but it's not like the CLA where we can apply it to every single role in basketball.

So for instance, a physiotherapist, they could make use of the CLA in rehab to help a player recover by applying constraint manipulations, embracing variability, et cetera. You can't do that with a games approach. A CLA can be used by scouts and front office evaluators to actually reframe how they evaluate players, which obviously we cannot get within a games-based approach.

So we can even use the CLA as a theory for viewing staff and coaching development, or as framework to apply across a whole organization to move beyond siloed operational procedures. And this obviously now really understanding just how deep a CLA goes. And obviously we don't really see that at all within a games-based approach where it's confined just to coaches.

Gonna go back to the paper now. So the quote starts, this proposal emerged because they, aka PE teachers in schools, believed that through their observations, many children did not understand games, or in some cases were not even playing them. What should be made clear here is that Teaching Games Understanding Model was designed as a practical approach aimed at improving the learning experiences of children.

And it was not developed as a theoretically based pedagogical framework, and it was never intended to be so. I think that's interesting because as I just alluded to, the whole reason the CLA was developed was as an alternative to information processing-based theories or coaches coaching with no theory at all to develop more skillful players in every single sport.

You know, the roots of this, it goes far, far beyond a teaching games for understanding approach. Now, when we also look at games-based approaches, what they're commonly done is to— they're used to solve a problem and basically enhance tactical understanding. Whereas a big part of using the CLA effectively, it's not just for that, but it's to develop more functionality within individual players.

So for instance, in finishing, can players learn to be more adaptive and finish in different ways? Can they pass in more different ways? And what we typically see in game-based approaches is it's far more of an emphasis on 3-on-3, 4-on-4, and 5-on-5. And if coaches were to watch my practices, yes, of course we do a lot of that stuff, but I really view that the magic is in 1-on-1 plus 1s, or 1-on-2s, 1-on-3s, 2-on-2 plus 1, 2-on-2 plus 2s, because it's these specific environments which amplify affordances and develop functionality.

So yes, of course there's an element of problem solving in everything we do, Within a CLA, I think we're looking far more at developing the skill sets of not just the team, but the individual player, as opposed to just using a games approach so that the whole team can learn to solve a tactical problem in a better manner.

So this kind of echoes some of the— another kind of part of the paper where the researchers wrote that, for example, in order to develop tactical awareness, the assumption is that the learner should explicitly understand in order to perform the skill adequately, And this kind of echoes another part of the paper where they also kind of alluded to the information processing ideas that underpin some games approach theories.

So the researchers wrote, in order to develop tactical awareness, the assumption is that the learner should explicitly understand, in order to perform the skill adequately, the schema, the knowledge structure. And this kind of echoes another part of the research paper where the researchers wrote how an assumption within the games approach is how the players should supposedly understand how to perform a skill adequately and have some type of knowledge structure or mental model in order to do that.

Whereas instead, with the CLA, there are multiple ways to achieve a goal. And we distinguish the differences between knowledge about and knowledge of. So players don't need to know what a skill supposedly looks like before they're immersed within a CLA activity. As part of that, we appreciate that there are lots of different ways to achieve a task goal, such as finishing at the rim, as opposed to a few ways which we try and teach to every single player.

So this is very different because within a games-based approach, as I've spoken about, a lot of coaches still instruct based on players doing things a certain way or moving, you know, in a one-size-fits-all approach where everyone will So I previously spoke about the differences between how information processing theories underpin some games-based approaches compared to the CLA, which is ecologically orientated.

So going back to the paper, the researchers wrote how in games-based approaches, supposedly, in order to develop tactical awareness, there's an assumption that the learner should explicitly know how to perform a skill adequately And kind of have mental models and knowledge structures to be able to do that.

And obviously in the CLA, it's very different. We don't believe in mental models. We don't believe in teaching players or suggesting that there's one correct way to solve a problem and to execute a skill. Instead, we believe that there are many different individualized ways of achieving the same performance outcome.

And that's what Ren Shaw et al. wrote in the paper. So that's a big difference to a games approach. We're not going to be looking for players to do things one way. We're not going to drill something and then create a small-sided game where that movement that we just taught them emerges.

We're going to do it the opposite. We're going to create a CLA task, and then we're going to see what happens. And we're not going to digress to a drill, but we're just going to manipulate constraints continuously. So big difference there. So I think too, the use of questioning and reflection is very different between both approaches.

So Within the CLA, what we see a lot is, I think now coaches are adopting more of a hands-off kind of laissez-faire approach. And that is not for me what a CLA is. But at the same time, it's not heavily instructing, telling the players what should happen.

And we gotta get the balance right. So for me, we can absolutely give feedback within a CLA. It's just one type of informational constraint. But we have to make sure that as we're, if we're using questioning and providing opportunities for the players to reflect, We're not looking for them to do something in one very specific way.

So we gotta appreciate that, yes, it's definitely useful. I do things like debriefs, player timeouts, and things like that. And I think it's useful, but what it's doing is it's allowing players to become more informed of their affordance landscape. So we call that the education of intention and attention.

So for instance, I might use questioning. To impact the intention of the players. So maybe we're doing a small-sided game and there have been a number of shots which have been taken, which contested shots, low value. I might use some type of intervention which changes and impacts the intention of the players where they begin to focus more on trying to get shots which are high-value, efficient shots, or in our team's shot spectrum.

So that is how I might use questioning reflection, and there's a very specific purpose behind it versus kind of just playing a games approach and asking some very specific questions that lead to very simplistic kind of verbalized responses such as yes or no or one-word answers.

So let's go back to the paper now, and the researchers wrote that this issue of potential negative effects of reflection is aligned with the key insights of Bernstein. Who proposed ideas of how actions in both less skilled and skilled performers can be performed without the need for conscious regulation of the movement form.

So what does that mean? So within a CLA, we don't want to be having the players consciously thinking about how they're controlling movement. So, you know, thinking about what positions their body parts must be in and, you know, having a very kind of internal focus of attention.

When we use reflection within the CLA, I think it's typically more focused on— could be principles of play or more concepts in general, such as how to exploit space, how to maybe explore a solution. So let's go back to the paper now, and I'm going to unpack this segment because it can be a little bit challenging to understand this one.

So the researchers wrote, this issue of potential negative effects of reflection is aligned with the key insights of Bernstein, Who proposed ideas of how actions in both skilled and less skilled performers can be performed without the need for conscious regulation of the movement form.

So what does that mean? Well, within a CLA, we don't want players to be consciously thinking about how to control their movement. Again, something I see a lot, and I briefly alluded to it earlier, is coaches will coach a small-sided game, but then instruct the players what to do.

Finish off 2 feet. You should have used this hand. You should have put the ball on this side of your body, you know, all this internal feedback. And we want to avoid that in a CLA because we don't want them— we don't want the players consciously thinking about the movement.

We want to promote an external focus of attention, which is outcome orientated. So what I find a lot when I'm using the CLA is I am not commonly giving feedback unless I see a player really struggling. Maybe they're finishing and they're using a similar solution every time and they're kind of not informed of different opportunities, I might question them and say, could you explore a different way to finish?

But most of the time, a lot of the reflective points kind of I provide opportunities for players to participate in are focused on principles of play as opposed to thinking about very specific individual movements, et cetera. Okay, next part, progressions. These are a big part of a game's approach where Coaches will commonly go from a 1-on-1 to a 2-on-2 to a 3-on-3, and then, as I mentioned, digress to an on-air drill to solve the problems that surfaced within those games.

Within a CLA, it's very nonlinear, so we are not going to have clear progressions in a practice. We don't believe in progressions. Progressions are the enemy of actual effective skill development because we might start with a 5-on-5 and we might go to something completely different A 2-on-2 plus 1, then we might jump again to a 4-on-4, and maybe we go to some 1-on-1.

So we are jumping around for a reason based on what we are seeing and maybe what the intention is of the practice. There's no need to do these progressions. For instance, ball on the back advantage start 1-on-1, then we're gonna do that 2-on-2, then we'll do that 3-on-3.

You know, that approach is not really relevant within a CLA. Again, let's go back to the paper. And Renshaw et al. wrote, teaching games for understanding has a progression-like structure in which the complexity of the games and challenges is increased as learners develop.

The games approach advocates for isolated drills and instructions common to more traditional approaches to address poor technical skill execution within the game. This could be seen in practice tasks interjected between introductory and final games for a teaching games for understanding approach. Whereas in the CLA, the focus is on task simplification, where the technical skills are made easier through manipulations of key task constraints such as rules, space, and time, or importantly, the equipment that students can use.

So, you know, I've spoken about task simplification already, and that would be our alternative in the CLA. We see that players are struggling, and, you know, they're not executing these quote-unquote technical skills well. Well, instead of drilling these skills, We simplify and we manipulate constraints further.

Now, another difference is within a games approach, I would say the environment is certainly learner-centered because it's more enjoyable and we're focused on improving the learning experience of the player. That's one of the biggest motivations behind why a games approach would be used— more fun.

However, a CLA is definitely learner-centered, but I would say it's more learner-environment-centered. And the reason for that is because obviously an ecological approach, underpins the CLA. And this means the whole part of why we would use this methodology is because we appreciate the foundational element is the interaction between the player and their environment.

What we are constantly focused on in the CLA is the environment and the interaction that the players are having within this environment and how we can constantly manipulate constraints to amplify or remove certain opportunities for action within this environment. Whereas things like an affordance and considering even an affordance landscape and how we can amplify certain things, that's not really relevant within a games-based approach.

A really interesting point that the researchers raised was how it's not easy to design environments where we're really focused on the individual-environment interaction. And what that often leads to is we have to think very creatively as coaches to use the CLA well if we're thinking about this interaction with the environment and what things we want to turn up, what things we want to turn down.

And even things like creating activities which feature purposeful constraints, it's not easy. It's much easier to create a generic small-sided game with kind of the same version of the game you play every time. You actually have to think very deeply to use the CLA well at the beginning, in particular, before you become very comfortable with it.

And it requires a very deep knowledge about the game of basketball itself. Because we have to consider, all right, if this constraint is manipulated and we introduce this, what might happen? Is this going to— it's obviously going to be difficult to predict, but we have an intention behind why we might be using constraints, what we want to encourage.

I think this is for coaches who maybe want to move from a games-based approach to the CLA. I'd say we got to think deeply about the environment and what interactions we want to elicit through how we are using these various constraint manipulations. So I want to get through a few examples here of what everything I've mentioned so far looks like between a games approach and CLA.

So one-on-one ball on the back, we see that very commonly used throughout the basketball world, but not through a CLA lens, more through a games approach. So all this is, the defender starts maybe on the 3-point line, they're blind to the offensive player standing behind them.

They're facing the rim, the offensive player has a ball, and as soon as they take it off, they play one-on-one. That's it. And what we see in there is a whole bunch of different things within a game's approach. So often players will maybe take very inefficient shots if the defender recovers.

Maybe they take lots of time and they lose the advantage. Defender gets back to neutral, they keep playing one-on-one. Maybe they're gonna venture into different spacings every time. And also, maybe they might revert to using very similar finishing solutions on each attempt. And typically, players would play against the same person for prolonged periods of time unless they're cued to change partners.

So within the CLA, let's take the same game and think about how we could change it. Well, firstly, just by saying you can only score in the smile, it's gonna be way more representative because the player, the offense, is gonna have the intention to keep their advantage.

Versus losing it. We could add that constraint. We could say there's a time limit too, or a dribble limit. So maybe you even have one dribble. That's gonna really encourage the offensive player to find ways to create lots of space with one dribble.

That's not gonna happen in the games approach when we're using the same game. We could have extra defenders playing defense in different areas, stunting at the ball, et cetera, making the one-on-one harder. We could say, You can only use the net to finish.

You can only maybe use the backboard, but the area of the backboard outside the square. There's lots we could do. We could constrain the space. We could say, all right, now you're not scoring the smile. You can only score outside the paint if we want to develop some adaptivity within shooting.

That's just an example there of how a CLA applied to that very common basketball small-sided game, how, what that would look like. Now the next one, 3-on-3 chaser game. So this is like an old school one where You have 3 players, you have 2 teams kind of lined up either sideline.

One team, as soon as the ball crosses the half, there are 2 defenders already waiting, and one player from the defensive team must run in, touch the center circle before they play defense. Right now, if we see that in a game's approach, we typically see the same similar behaviors emerging, and we see very bad spacing.

We see the 3 kind of the traditional spacing. The ball will be in the middle, 2 players on the wings, all cutting in at the same time. 2 defenders always starting in a different position. That situation we don't want because it's allowing one defender to guard 2, and it's probably removing opportunities to get a high-value shot.

It's making it harder. So how can we apply the CLA to that game? Well, firstly, I would introduce the constraint, the floor is lava, where players cannot catch the ball in the mid-range unless they're cutting deep to the rim. Immediately by doing that, our spacing's gonna be way better, as opposed to having all these players kind of inside the 3-point line.

One player is gonna probably be spacing somewhere outside the 3-point line. Another player might be cutting in deep while the ball handler has more space. So really simple example. Then we could say the defense must always be in a different position. Again, you'll never see the defense tandem in a real game, as we see within that games approach kind of activity.

So by having the defenders always coming from different positions, well, it's way more representative, it's way more beneficial. Then I would introduce constraints to increase the representativity further. Time limit. Maybe we play with a 7-second shot clock. Maybe we say you can only shoot 3s and rim finishes.

Maybe we, instead of that 3rd defender running in, they have to high-five a coach who's moving in different places. So different advantage states will present themselves in the game. Sometimes it could be a big advantage, sometimes no advantage. They have to run a trigger instead of looking for dominoes.

So Hopefully now, coaches, you're really getting the idea as to just how different these 2 worlds are between game-based and CLA approaches. 3-on-3 half-court, same thing. Maybe we're just playing FIBA 3-on-3 continuous, whereas maybe we're using a CLA well. Maybe we are having a variable shot clock.

Maybe I call it shrinking the space. We are constantly changing the space that the players have available within the game based on where the coaches are standing. Maybe we're changing the triggers that can be used every 2 minutes. Maybe we're changing the scoring systems.

Last one, 3-on-3 pass keep away. I love— I think it's a great game to develop pivoting, passing solutions, et cetera. One team has to typically stay inside an area and get 8 passes in a row to win or to get a point. So that's keep away.

Again, though, it would be if we just do that and we play that version every time, it's a games approach. So how can we use the CLA? Well, Maybe we use cones to mark out different playing spaces in the gym of very irregular shapes.

And every minute, the players and the teams have to change, play in a different area. Well, different movement solutions are going to emerge within these different spaces that they have to play in. Some could be smaller, some could be harder, just to make it easier and more difficult.

We could also say that maybe after every pass, the offense has to escape the playing area the passer before they can come back in and receive it again. What is that gonna do? Well, it might create affordances to trap because the defense, the defenders have a temporary +1 advantage.

We could say, all right, now you have one opportunity to dribble if you want to. So now this might afford opportunities to pass in different ways and to create space. And we could even change the game. Instead of having it keep away, we make it like a pass touchdown.

So it's a bit more representative instead of just maintaining possession. The offense have to score a touchdown in the other team's area. So much we can do here. And again, it's all based on a reason as to why we are doing this. That was the main intent today, to really outline the differences.

And I'm definitely pleased that coaches now are more familiar with games-based approaches and drills. But for me now, we have to make the next big shift in the basketball world, and that is moving from games-based approaches to the CLA. And if we really want to see the benefits of this approach and develop more skillful, adaptive players, Then, you know, as I've outlined today, we cannot compare the CLA from a skill adaptation standpoint compared to a games approach.

So I would advocate that we even stop using the word games approach. And if we're really doing it well, we just talk about a constraints-led approach because they have 2 very different methodologies. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast.

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