The Effects of Internal and External Focus of Attention on Children`s Performance in Vertical Jump Task

Abstract The purpose of this present study was to examine the effects of internal and external focus of attention on children`s performance in vertical jump task. Sixteen 8-10 year old (m= 9, ± 0.89) children voluntarily participated in this study. The participants first performed vertical jump task in the control condition, then performed under two conditions in a counterbalanced order: External attentional focus and internal attentional focus. In the control condition, the participants performed vertival jump without giving attentional focus instruction. In the external focus condition, the participantʹs attention was directed to the rungs of a measurement device, namely, Vertek and in the internal focus condition, their attention was directed to their fingers with which they were to touch the rungs. The participants performed 8 vertical jumps in every three conditions and the hight of their jumps were measured. As we measured repeatedly, the result of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the external focus of attention significantly led to better performance (higher vertical jump) compared to internal focus and control condition. This present study suggests that adopting external attentional focus will improve effectiveness of childrenʹs movement in tasks which require maximum force production.