The effect of attentional focus types as the self talk form on acquisition and retention of Basketball chest pass

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of attentional focus types as the instructional self-talk form on acquisition and retention of basketball chest pass in the novice adolescent boys. 59 volunteered participants (13.4± 0.57yr) were randomly divided into three groups (control, internal attentional focus, external attentional focus). After pretest, five sessions of the basketball chest pass practice were taken for all groups. Post test were conducted after last session of practice and retention test was also conducted after two weeks of practice. Data were analyzed by one way ANOVA, Repeated measure ANOVA and Bonferoni Post Hoc test. The results showed that the differences between all groups during pretest and retention test were significant. Although the differences between experimental groups were not significant. On the other hand, the difference between experimental and control groups were significant. Therefore, the instructional self-talk is caused to improve the acquisition and retention of this skill in primary stage of learning, but probably the manipulating of attentional focus types is not effective.