Mental Abilities
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Introduction:
The purpose of this experiment was to determine if the theory indicating the presence of a singular general motor ability is valid. If there is a singular general motor ability, then you should always expect a high correlation between people’s performance on any two motor tasks. The experiment investigates the relationship between different motor skills among subjects in the class. The motor skills include a netball shooting task, a soccer driblling task and a alternative hand wall toss.
Review of Literature:
The term ability refers to a general trait or capacity of the individual that is related to the performance of a variety of skills or tasks. A variety of motor abilities underlie the performance of a motor skill. Different people have different levels of these abilities. An important question that researchers debated for yours concerns how these abilities relate to one another in the same individual. The general motor ability hypothesis proposes that abilities are highly related, whereas the specificity hypothesis argues that abilities are relatively independent of one another. Research evidence consistently has supported the specificity hypothesis.
The Method:
The general step for each task were:
1.. Record the best score of two trials, with the exception of the basketball task where only one trial is undertaken.
2. Each timed trial will last for 20 seconds with a short rest in between each trial.
The method for each task was:
Netball Shooting Task
1. The shot is to be made from the markers. There are 6 shots for the trial
2. The score is the number of successful baskets from the 6 shots on offer.
Soccer Dribbling Task (A timed task)
1. The ball should be dribbled through the markers continuously until the end of the trial.
2. All cones must be passed through, if one is missed, the subject must go back and pass through it before continuing on.
3. The score is the number of cones rounded during the allotted time
Alternate Hand Wall Toss (A timed task)
1. Stand two (2) metres (approx.) away from the wall, facing the wall.
2. At the commencement of the trial throw the ball with your right hand at the wall so that it rebounds to you- you must now catch it with the left hand.
3. Continue with the trial alternately catching and throwing with different hands.
4. The score is the number of successful catches in the allotted time.
Results From Experiment:
The group conducting this experiments ran it on the 8th June, 2006. It took roughly 1 hour. There were 8 participants with 3 different task. Below is a table of our results and a correlation between the netball and soccer tasks, the soccer and catch tasks, and the netball and catch tasks.
Subject NB Test Soccer Test Catch Test
1 2 13 28
2 0 13 22
3 1 15 17
4 1 14 23
5 1 10 18
6 0 13 18
7 0 13 16
8 0 14 16
The results were inconclusive, as to whether singular general motor ability is valid because there was a close (or it could be seen as) correlation between the catch and soccer task, but when either of these tasks were correlated with the netball task their was no closeness.
Discussion:
What this experiment revealed was the idea of a singular general motor ability can not be seen as valid. Although there could be seen as a close correlation between the soccer task and the catch task, there was no evidence to support the suggestion that you should always expect a high correlation between people’s performance on any two motor tasks. However the results could have been different if the task were more closely related such as the catch task being compared to netball passing instead of shooting, Although the tasks that were been asked to be performed were completely different movements, the idea of a singular general motor ability can not be supported.
References:
Schmidt, R.A & Wrisberg, C.A (2001). ‘Motor Learning and Performance-3rd Edition’. (p 34)
Proctor, R.W. & Dutta, A. (1995). Skill acquisition and human performance. Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage. (Read Ch. 10: Individual Differences)