No abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance on climbing Bachman’s ladder rungs in adolescents with high and low levels of trait anxiety (TA) who self-set their goals. We tested the hypothesis that those who self-set goals and scoring low in TA would show superior performance on retention and transfer than those who self-set goals scoring high in TA. The 40 participants [male and female; age 15.81±1,01 (M±SD) years] who took part in the experiment were selected from a primary sample of 465 adolescents. Two groups were formed (high TA and low TA) and the task consisted of climbing the rungs of the Bachman’s ladder. The design was comprised of four experimental phases: 1) acquisition (15 blocks of 10 trials), 2) immediate transfer (one block of 10 trials); 3) delayed transfer (one block of 10 trials), 4) retention, (one block of 10 trials). The analyses of variance indicated significant effects for the main factor “block” in acquisition; the performance in the initial blocks was worse than in the last blocks. No group differences were detected on either acquisition or transfer and retention. Thus, our findings suggest that the practice undertaken through an active engagement of the learner via self-setting of goals enhanced the performance of all participants during acquisition. The lack of differences in performance between high and low levels of TA was probably due to the offset caused by the self-setting of goals.Key Words: Goal setting, self-control, anxiety, adolescents, motor learning.Â

Motor learning is a ciclic, dynamic and adaptive process, in which motor skills are stabilised and used in more complex situations. To understand motor skill acquisition as an adaptive process, it is necessary to break down the achieved stability in order to reach higher levels of complexity. Thus, instability, uncertainty, disorder, and error might act as positive features in this process. Considering KR as a source of order/disorder, this study aimed to investigate which frequency (33%, 66% e 100%) and precision (general and specific) KR schedules benefit the adaptive process in the acquisition of a linear positioning and manual force control combination motor task. A hundred and twenty undergraduate students ranging from 18 to 39 years (mean age = 25 yr., standard deviation = 4.5 yr.) were randomly assigned to six groups of 20 subjects each (ten male and ten female). In the first phase of the experiment (stabilisation), the subjects performed the motor task receiving verbal KR about the immediately finished trial that provided information about accomplishing the goal of 20% of the maximum force and 35 cm of displacement. The criterion to complete this phase was to perform two consecutive trials inside the error bandwidth. In the adaptation phase, 15 non-KR trials were performed on the same task, but with an environmental perturbation involving a traction force of xv about 2 kgf in the opposite direction of the movement. It was developed and used an apparatus enabling a linear positioning combined with a manual force control task. The subjects performed blindfolded and with the non-dominant hand. Absolute, constant, and variable errors measures were used to analyse the learning process. According to the stabilisation phase results, there were evidences that frequent and specific KR produced improvement of performance. The groups, on both task requirements (force and distance), reduced the level of errors from an initial to a posterior point in time with exponential trend, which is an evidence of learning occurrence. Results from the second phase indicated that the adaptation to the introduced perturbation was not related to KR frequency and precision provided in the stabilization phase. Data from both requirements fitted in a model with significant variance at the beginning. However, there was response heterogeneity throughout the trials in the distance requirement. Moreover, results revealed from low to moderate tracking, that is, subjects did not perform with stability, what reduces the probability to preview the performance of each group and each subject. A few amount of subjects exhibited absence of error randomness, which could express some performance trend, that is, a consistent strategy along trials. It can be concluded that it is not necessary to excessively diminish uncertainty by means of KR schedules with high frequency and precision.

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance on climbing Bachman’s ladder rungs in adolescents with high and low levels of trait anxiety (TA) who self-set their goals. The 40 participants who took part in the experiment were selected from a primary sample of 465 adolescents. Two groups were formed (high TA and low TA) and the task consisted of climbing the rungs of the Bachman’s ladder. The design was comprised of four experimental phases: 1) acquisition (15 blocks of 10 trials), 2) immediate transfer (one block of 10 trials); 3) delayed transfer (one block of 10 trials), 4) retention, (one block of 10 trials). The analyses of variance indicated significant effects for the main factor “block” in acquisition; the performance in the initial blocks was worse than in the last blocks. No group differences were detected on either acquisition or transfer and retention. Thus, our findings suggest that the practice undertaken through an active engagement of the learner via self-setting of goals enhanced the performance of all participants during acquisition. The lack of differences in performance between high and low levels of TA was probably due to the offset caused by the self-setting of goals.