The Prospect of Changing Naive Conception and Performance in an Overhand Volleyball Pass Skill Among Seventh Grade PE Students

Abstract

This study examined the prospect of changing PE students' naive conception (the knowledge that students possess prior to learning) of a volleyball overhand pass skill and their performance of the skill. The participants were 38 seventh grade students who took part in a 10-hour PE volleyball unit, and each completed the Naive Conception Questionnaire to rate the degree of importance of various movements (DIM) in the overhand pass and to identify technical problems in skill performance (TPI). The questionnaire was administered pre-and post-unit, and the students' own performance was alsoˆlmed at those times. The results showed that DIM scores increased signiˆcantly in the post-unit on three elements of the overhand pass. However, the overall diŠerence in TPI was not signiˆcant, despite a marked improvement in one section. This indicates that it was di‹cult to change the students' overall misconception of the skill's technical requirements. Nevertheless, when scores for DIM evaluations and TPI increased, the students' own performance also improved, but when they possessed incorrect images of the form of the hands, they performed the overhand pass more poorly than those with correct images. Future research should look at the speciˆc ways in which naive conception aŠects learning and performance among PE students, and how teaching strategies can be tailored to the individual learner.