Identifier

etd-04042008-112837

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Kinesiology

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Traditionally, contextual interference (CI) has been investigated by the use of extreme low and high levels of CI (blocked and random practice schedules); with results generally suggesting that higher rather than lower amounts of CI facilitated motor skill learning (Magill & Hall, 1990). To better understand the CI effect, two experiments were conducted investigating an alternative form of practice schedule. Practice using this alternative schedule provided novices experiences with systematic increases in CI, which were compared to traditional blocked and random scheduling. Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that practicing variations of the same tasks with systematic increases in CI would lead to superior performance when practicing the same tasks in a blocked or random schedule. Participants (N=60) practiced a golf putting task at three distances for a total of 81 trials following either a blocked, random, or increasing practice schedule. The increasing schedule had participants practice the first 27 trials with blocked scheduling, followed by 27 serial trials, practice then concluded with 27 trials of random scheduling. Results showed that participants who followed the increasing schedule generally performed better on a retention and transfer test when compared to participants practicing the same tasks following blocked and random schedules. The purpose of Experiment 2 was to test if the learning benefits of an increasing schedule were limited to variations of the same task or if the benefits were generalizable to tasks with different invariant features, thus being controlled by different generalized motor programs (GMP). In this experiment novice participants (N=96) practiced three different basketball related passes (chest, overhead, single arm). Using methods similar to Experiment 1, participants practiced the three passes in a blocked, random, or increasing schedule for 81 trials. Results showed that participants who practiced with gradual increases in CI generally performed better on a retention and transfer test compared to participants who practiced with traditional blocked or random scheduling. The results of these two experiments indicate that a practice schedule offering systematic increases in CI facilitates skill learning and these learning benefits are generalizable to tasks controlled by the same or different GMPs.

Date

2008

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Magill, Richard A

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.2980

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