Annals of Applied Sport Science (Sep 2013)
The Effect of Contextual Interference on Acquisition and Learning Badminton Skills among Children aged from 10 to 12
Abstract
Age may limit the effect of contextual interference, but the accurate effect of age on contextual interference is not completely identified. Therefore, the purpose of the study was the effect of contextual interference practice orders on acquisition and learning of badminton skills of 45 female students aged from 10 to 12. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups of blocked, random, and systematically increasing contextual interference. They trained three skills of badminton long serves, short serves, and forehand strokes for 10 sessions after pre-test. The tests consist of Acquisition, immediate retention, and delayed retention were taken after the fifth session, one hour after the end of the tenth session, and 48 hours after the last practice session, respectively. According to the findings of the study, in acquisition test, the blocked group achieved better scores than the random and systematically increasing groups. Although the three groups performed significantly better than pre-test scores in retention test, there was no difference among groups, meaning that contextual interference did not have positive results for children in learning badminton skills. Seemingly, due to the limitations in strategy, our participants were probably confused among the abundant information from the random practices and were not able to use the advantages of contextual interference. So, the benefits of random practice based on forgetting and elaborating hypotheses in this age group, especially regarding discrete motor skill in badminton is in doubt. The authors carefully suggest that elementary school physical education teachers should use blocked practice methods for badminton practice to help children build a suitable motor skills scheme and encourage them to repeat the desired skills because of the motivational feedback of blocked practice as a result of greater success in practice sessions.
