The effects of estimating good vs. poor knowledge of results during acquisition of a spatial motor task

Abstract

Providing learners knowledge of results (KR) after 'good' rather than 'poor' trials has shown to expedite skill learning (Chiviacowsky & Wulf, 2005). Further, participants required to estimate their response success during skill acquisition showed superior learning to those who did not predict their response success during acquisition (Swinnen, Schmidt, Nicholson & Shapiro,1990). The purpose of the present study was to determine if requiring participants to estimate their three best or three worst trials in a series of six trial acquisition blocks would prove superior to learning compared to those participants not estimating their performance. Participants pushed and released a slide along a confined pathway using their non-dominant hand to a target distance (133cm) with their vision occluded. Participants received KR either based on their three best (KR good) or three worst (KR poor) trials in a 6 trial block, combined with the requirement to either estimate or not estimate their perceived good or poor trials of the six trial block for a total of 4 experimental conditions. The retention and transfer data showed participants who received KR after good trials (M = 18.66)demonstrated superior learning and performance estimations compared to those receiving KR after poor trials (M = 23.31), independent of the requirement to estimate performance. The theoretical and practical importance of KR content and performance estimation on motor skill learning will be discussed