The Effect of Virtual Reality Training on Heading Skills in 12-13 Years Old Child Footballers

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the heading skills of virtual reality training in 12–13 years old child football players. 24 child football players between the ages of 12-13, licensed by the Turkish Football Federation as amateur athletes, participated in this study. 24 volunteer participants participated in the 8-week training process in 3 groups. Each group has 8 players. These groups are as follows; first, the VR group which performs football heading shoot skill only with virtual technology method, second, VR and traditional method group which uses virtual reality and traditional methods in a mixed way, third, the control group which uses only traditional methods. The instructional design model carried out in the research is five-stage instructional design model developed by Kalkan and Çamlıyer (2020). The performance test of the research was carried out as a pre-test, mid-test, and post-test. As a result, it was concluded that virtual reality technology can be used as an effective training method in the development of heading skills in football.