Andre Arnold & Markus Raab

The present study was conducted to examine the influence of external and internal instructions on the learning of a sport-motor movement, taking the golf putt as an example. With external instructions the attention of the learner is directed to the effect of the movement in the environment, while internal instructions direct the attention towards one’s own body movements (Wulf & Prinz, 2000). Wulf and Prinz reported a learning advantage of the external focus when learning a new movement, which pointed itself to better achievements during the acquisition phase. An external focus continued to be favourable also during execution of a secondary task regarding the stability of the execution achievement in relation to an internal focus. Some sport scientists could not determine the advantages of an external focus in similar investigations (Poolton, Masters, Maxwell & Raab, in press; Masters et al., 2002). The central question of the present investigation was whether an informational overload of the performer is responsible for a break down in the performance during execution of a secondary task, or whether the internal focus actually leads to more unfavourable learning conditions.

Two experimental groups (n = 20) were given in each case a set of six internal or external instructions. All test subjects played altogether 390 putts distributed in ten blocks of 30 trials (learning phase) and 3 blocks (A-B-A) of 30 trials (test phase). In the test phase after each block, subjects were asked to comment on what they had been concentrating on whilst putting and what they did to implement the movement. During a short break after the learning phase the subjects filled out additionally a questionnaire, in which they mentioned all useful and applied techniques, methods and rules of the movement. In the second block of the test phase the test subjects had to perform the primary task (Putt) and at the same time count high pitched tones. For the data analysis a two-factorial design with the factor group and repeated measures of the factor block was used.

Earlier findings of Wulf and colleagues could not be replicated. The groups did not show differences regarding the putting performance. In the test phase the internal group suffered like the external group under the influence of the secondary task and worsened concerning the hit performance. The evaluation of verbal protocols confirmed the assumption that an equivalent high degree of explicit knowledge was accumulated and used in both groups. A manipulation check carried out demonstrated a frequent changing of the focus conditions within the test subjects. The evaluation of movement data led for the time being to no differences between the groups. The found results point to the theses of Poolton et al. (2004) and Masters et al. (2003). An informational overload of the learner seems to be responsible for the breakdown under secondary task-load during the second block of the test phase. Both groups changed the attention direction equally frequently and accumulated an equal amount of explicit knowledge. The fact that old internal rules, thus the rules, which were read by the subjects at the beginning of each block in the acquisition phase and additionally on the instruction papers, were apparently not processed by the subjects.

No satisfactory explanation has presented itself to me as yet. I see this paper as a kind speculative note that the internal focus and thus directing the attention toward the hands were possibly avoided by the subjects intuitively. In order to give recommendations regarding the formulation of instructions for practical application, instructions in finer nuances would have to be examined regarding the sport-specific skills. More long-term investigation plans, which could uncover also long-term effects, offer a good possibility to identify other investigation variables, e.g. the influence of the sleep time, personal traits of the subjects regarding self-confidence.

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