Content knowledge: Its influence on baseball performance at four age levels by Del Rio, Luis O., Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, 1989, 292 pages; AAT 9010033

Abstract (Summary)

Little research has been conducted to determine if experienced children can perform as well as experienced adults. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of content knowledge on perceiving the intended direction of a batted baseball. Independent variables of age and experience were the between groups manipulations. The design of Experiment 1 was a 2 (expert/novice) x 4 age (9, 11, 14, 19) x 2 (baseball, field hockey) x 6 field (skill) randomized design with repeated measures on the last two factors. A ANOVA was calculated on hitting skill level and a MANOVA was calculated with error and time. Another MANOVA was calculated with frequency of cues mentioned as the dependent variables.

For hitting perception, the analysis indicated that the age x experience x skill interaction was significant for error. The results for the baseball skill indicated that experts, regardless of age, performed with lower errors than novices. However, with the exception of the 9-year-olds, experts performed with greater errors on the field hockey skill. Finally, results of the cues observed analysis indicated a significant experience main effect. The experts regardless of age attended to more relevant cues than novices. As expected, novices attended to more irrelevant cues than experts. Conclusions from Experiment 1 suggested that experts' better swing perception was due to their content knowledge about the baseball swing. In contrast, the novices' lack of structured knowledge negatively influenced their performance.

In Experiment 2, relevant baseball cues were taught to unexperienced subjects. The training procedures used were those of Mosston's (1981) Discovery style of teaching. A different baseball film was also used to train the subjects. The baseball film used in Experiment 1, was used in Experiment 2. The design of the study was a 3 (expert, novice, trained) x 4 (age) x 3 (fields) randomized design with repeated measures on the last factor. A MANOVA was calculated with error and time as the dependent variables. As expected, trained subjects regardless of age performed with less errors than novices. However, trained subjects were better than the experts. Significant to the study, it was found that novice subjects can be trained to perform as well as or better than experts.

Indexing (document details)

Advisor: Gallagher, Jere D.

School: University of Pittsburgh

School Location: United States -- Pennsylvania

Source: DAI-A 51/02, p. 405, Aug 1990

Source type: Dissertation

Subjects: Preschool education, Developmental psychology, Psychology, Experiments, Cellular biology

Publication Number: AAT 9010033

Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=746095171&sid=14&Fmt=2&cl

ientId=45091&RQT=309&VName=PQD

ProQuest document ID: 746095171_{Copyright © 2011 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.}

Databases selected: Dissertations & Theses

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