Motor Behavior

The effect of autonomy support on learning overhand throw in elementary school students

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MSc of Motor Behavior, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Education, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran

3 faculty member of SSRC

Abstract
This study was conducted to explore the effect of autonomy support on learning overhand throw in elementary school students. This research was semi-experimental with a pre-posttest design with a control group. Fifty-four girls from an elementary school in Astana Ashrafieh city were selected and asked to learn the task of throwing with the non-dominant hand towards a target consisting of several circles on the wall. After the pre-test, these children were placed in one of 3 groups: task-relevant choices, task-irrelevant choices, and yoked group. Subsequently, the participants were asked to participate in the acquisition phase (5 blocks of 10 trials) and one day after that they participated in the retention and transfer tests. Pre-test, retention and transfer scores were analyzed in separate one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs). In the practice phase, scores were analyzed in a 3 (groups) x 5 (block) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures on the last factor. The analysis showed that task-relevant (p= 0/019) and task-irrelevant (p= 0/002) choice groups were able to perform better in the retention test as compared to the yoked group. Nevertheless, in the transfer test, only the task-relevant choice group (p= 0/017) was able to perform better as compared to the yoked group. It seems that, at least for children, task-relevant choices can have both information- and motivation-based effectiveness.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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Motor Behavior
Volume 15, Issue 54
December 2024
Pages 119-132

  • Receive Date 06 January 2024
  • Revise Date 02 March 2024
  • Accept Date 03 March 2024

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