Evandros Votsis, George Tzetzis, Vasilia Hatzitaki and V. George Grouios
Department of Physical Education and Sport Science Control and Learning, Laboratory of Motor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Citation
Votsis, E., Tzetzis, G., Hatzitaki, V., George Grouios, V. (2009). The effect of implicit and explicit methods in acquisition of anticipation skill in low and high complexity situations. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 40(3), 374-391.
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of explicit and implicit learning methods in acquisition and retention of anticipation skill in low and high complexity situations in badminton. Participants were 80 students ranging in age from 18 to 28 years (M=20, SD=2.88) who had no previous experience with racket sports. They were divided into four equal groups and followed different training interventions: a) explicit learning group via guided discovery, b) implicit learning group through concurrent secondary task via method of random letter generation, c) placebo group and d) control group. Groups followed an intervention program of 12 practice sessions, with theoretical and practical lessons. All participants underwent separate video-based, pre-test, posttest, and retention test. The number of explicit rules possessed by participants before and after the training intervention was also assessed to evaluate the correct implementation of the learning methods. Separate two-way (4 groups X 3 measurement tests) analyses of variance with repeated measures on the last factor were applied to analyze performance measured by reaction time and response accuracy for the two complexity situations. In low complexity situations there was no significant main effect of group time or interaction for the reaction time scores. However, experimental groups improved their response accuracy over time and both explicit and implicit groups were better than the control group at the retention test. In high complexity situations, again there was no significant main effect of group time or interaction for the reaction time scores. Both explicit and implicit groups had better reaction time than the control group. Only the explicit group improved the response accuracy overtime and this group was better than implicit, placebo and control groups at the retention test. It can be concluded that when the information selection procedure does not require high attention to the display and when the choices of the motor response are limited novices can be trained via both implicit and explicit learning methods. However, in more complex situations the explicit learning via guided discovery helps participants more substantially to improve their response accuracy. These findings may reflect a learning paradigm for anticipation skill in low and high complexity sport situations.
Keywords: Badminton, Complexity, explicit, and implicit learning