Poster Presentation

Paper ID : 1086-SSRC

¹Department of Motor Behavior and Sports Psychology, Faculty of Sports Science, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

²Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Science and Sports Technology, Faculty of Health and Sports Science, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Learning through expecting to teach represents a novel technique for learning. The technique has received attention from different research areas and has been reported to have advantages over the conventional learning technique of expecting to be tested. However, a major problem in learning by expecting to teach is that its advantages fade under pressure. Previous studies have recommended a number of methods to decrease declarative knowledge in learning by expecting to teach. It has been reported that using instructions for external focus of attention can be effective even under high levels of psychological pressure. Therefore, the present study was designed to examine how expecting to teach and external focus of attention may influence learning low backhand serve in badminton under psychological pressure. The participants were 96 adult novices (Mage20.87±1.84 years) selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to four experimental groups (expecting to teach and external focus of attention, expecting to teach, expecting to be tested and external focus, and expecting to be tested). The study consisted of four stages, namely pretest, acquisition, posttest under low pressure, and posttest under high pressure. The pretest consisted of 12 trials completed in the first day. This was followed by the acquisition stage where the participants completed 12 blocks of 10 trials for badminton low serve over a period of two days. After a 48-hour interval, the participants participated in the two posttest stages under low and high pressure (12 trials each). The findings indicated that during the acquisition, although learning occurred in all groups, none of these groups outperformed other groups in terms of learning (p>0.05). All four groups had similar declarative knowledge scores and the participants in all groups had similar performances during low-pressure and high-pressure posttest. In general, it can be concluded that learning by expecting to teach and external focus of attention has no advantage over learning by expecting to be tested. Given the similar performance of all four groups, it is recommended that badminton coaches should use all four techniques presented here for novice badminton players depending on learners’ conditions.

learning by expecting to teach; expecting to be tested; external focus of attention; psychological pressure