The effects of three levels of contextual inference among athlete children

International Conference on Sports Medicine and Fitness

March 23-25, 2015 Chicago, USA

Abdulaziz Almustafa

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Sports Med Doping Stud

Abstract :

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectsof contextual interference CIby extending previous laboratory and field research with athlete children through the acquisition and transfer phases. Male children (n=60) were chosen randomly from Eastern Province Clubs. They were assigned to complete either blocked practice, random practice, or serial practice. Analysis of variance with repeated measures MANOVA indicated that, the results support the notion that acquisition under blocked practice facilitated learning in children. There were significant differences in the acquisition phase, children under blocked practice demonstrated greater mean scores and less variability than the random and serial practice groups. During the transfer phase, children showed no significant differences in performance between blocked, random, and serial practice conditions. This is contradictory to contextual interference effects, but supports the hypothesis of this study; that the performance in sport settings is totally different from laboratory and simple movement skill infield research. Thus, the present support the suggestions by Battig, 1979; Shea & Morgan, 1979 Almustafa, 1989; 1994; 1999, that enhance learning by following contextual interference effects, but not for children in the field with complex learning environments on transfer phase.

Biography :

Abdulaziz Almustafa is a Professor in the Education & Psychology Department. He completed his PhD in 1989, from University of Pittsburgh (Motor development & Learning). He is interested in motor behavior across the life span, studying children as well as a youth on ecological learning setting. He is a sport and exercise psychosocial implications of sport and physical activity participation. He has published 7 textbooks, and 40 papers in reputed journals. He has also been reviewed for many journals in different countries.