Contextual Interference Effect in Observational Practice on learning of Basketball Skills

The present study sets to investigate the effect of contextual interference in observational training on learning basketball two-hand chest pass and control dribble using a pretest-posttest design. A number of 60 novice female students, aged 10-11 years old, were randomly assigned into five groups: Physical blocked practice, observational blocked practice, physical serial practice, observational serial practice, and control. Physical practice groups were considered as role models for their counterpart observational practice groups. The subjects participated in the pretest following a 60-minute training session. The experimental subjects participated in 12 training sessions. One day after the training protocol was over, a transfer test was administered to all participants. Mixed/Split Plot ANOVA with repeated measures and dependent t test were run to analyze the data (P < 0.05). The results showed a significant difference in all observational experimental subjects in terms of the form and outcome of skill performance between before and after the training program (P < 0.05).In other words, observational subjects in all experimental groups learnt the skills in terms of both the form and outcome of performance. In a between-group comparison, the results showed a significant difference in the outcome of control dribble performance between Observational Blocked Practice and Observational Serial Practice (P=0.049). Mean score differences in favor of Observational Serial Practice supported the effectiveness of contextual interference only in the outcome of dribble performance. However, the findings did not support the effectiveness of contextual interference in the form and outcome of two-hand chest pass performance and the form of dribble performance.