The Effects of an Instructional Strategy with Two Schedules of Augmented KP Feedback upon Skill Acquisition of a Selected Shooting Task

Abstract

This field-based study investigated the effect of an instructional strategy with two schedules of augmented knowledge-of-performance (KP) feedback on skill acquisition of a selected shooting task. Students enrolled in university rifle classes (N=135) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) instructional strategy (IS) with KP feedback after every trial, (b) IS with summary KP feedback, and (c) no IS with no KP feedback. Data collection consisted of (a) a pretest phase (one set of five trials) and (b) an acquisition phase (four sets of five trials). Instructional integrity was maintained during data collection so that students were treated as class participants. The findings indicated that (a) the presence of the instructional strategy in conjunction with the two feedback schedules appeared to positively effect the overall shooting performance as compared to no strategy/no KP, (b) the effects of the two KP schedules did not statistically differ from one another, and (c) the significant effect for trials indicated that as shooting practice progressed subjects in all three conditions appeared to improve.