Lab 2: Individual Differences And Motor Abilities

Lab 2: Individual Differences and Motor Abilities

When people perform different motor skills, they often don’t do equally well in everything. For example, you may be a better golfer than me, but I may be a better soccer player. On page 27 of the text, individual differences are defined as differences in people’s performance that are caused by differences in their stable and enduring abilities. So, if you had 10 people that you ranked from 1 to 10 (best to worst) in golf and then ranked them in soccer, you wouldn’t necessarily see them with the same rankings in the two skills. From the perspective of abilities, Person A may be very strong but relatively slow, whereas Person B may be moderately strong, but very fast. As a result, person A and person B will excel in different skills or tasks.

The present lab will test some of the theoretical ideas presented in Chapter Two.

Methodology

Participants

Ten females will be recruited from the Kin 080 class and tested on four different motor skills: standing long jump, reciprocal tapping, pencil balance, and stork stand (eyes closed). All participants will need to wear some type of gym shoes and be dressed in shorts for the testing session.

Tasks/Equipment

For the standing long jump a measuring tape will be used to measure the distance covered in cm. Targets for the tapping will be circles drawn on a piece of paper and a watch will be used for timing. Participants will tap back and forth between two targets as quickly as possible for 10s. A stopwatch is required to measure the length of time a participant is able to keep a pencil balanced at the end of their index (preferred hand) finger. For the stork stand a watch will be used to measure the length of time a participant can maintain single leg balance with the eyes closed.

Procedure

Each participant will be allowed two tries at each task with the best score being taken as their performance.

For the standing long jump participants are allowed to use any style they chose (e.g., arm swing, knee bend). On landing the point of body contact closest to the start line is used to measure the distance travelled.

Participants performing reciprocal tapping will tap back and forth between the right and left target as quickly and accurately as possible (see Fig. 6.5 in your text). A maximum of three target misses are allowed, otherwise the trial must be redone. An experimenter will count the taps as they are performed and a second experimenter will time the 10 s trial. The participant will begin tapping on the commands “ready”, “go”, and end on the command “stop”. These commands will be given by the timer.

Each participant in the pencil balance will begin by placing the pencil on their index finger (eraser end touching finger). They will steady the pencil in a vertical position using their opposite hand. On the command “go”, they will release their steady hand and balance the pencil for as long as possible. The performer must keep her feet shoulder width apart and is not allowed to shift her feet. A trial ends when the pencil loses contact with the (balancing) index finger. A single experimenter watches the performer and measures the amount of time the pencil is in balance.

The body position used for the stork stand will be similar to that used when athletes stretch their quadriceps. The non balancing foot is held by the opposite hand with the knee flexed and the leg held behind the performer. On the command “go”, the performer closes their eyes and remains balanced as long as possible. The trial ends either when the performer opens her eyes or lets go of the non balance foot. An experimenter issues the “go” command and measures the amount of time the performer remains in balance.

Dependent Variables

The long jump is measured as the length of the jump to the nearest centimeter. Tapping is the number of taps completed in 10s. Pencil balancing and the stork stand are measured as the number of seconds in balance. In all cases the best of the two trials is taken as the score for that participant.

Results

Construct two tables (something like those shown in Table 4.1 or 7.5 in the text – note each table has a title). Table 1 should list each of the 10 participants and their performance on each of the four tasks. Table 2 should list the participants and their ranking for each of the four tasks as well as their average rank across all four. The ranking is obtained for a particular task by giving the best performance a rank of 1, the second best 2, …. and the worst performance 10. In the results section you should provide a very brief one or two sentence description of what the reader should see in the two tables.

Discussion Questions

1. Do the results support the idea of a singular global motor ability (see pages 31- 33)? If the idea of a singular global motor ability were true, what should the results have looked like? 2. Discuss which theory (Henry or Fleishman) you believe best represents the connection between motor skill performance and underlying abilities. Refer to the test results to support your argument. 3. From the list of motor abilities displayed in Fig. 2.3, describe the ability or abilities that you believe are primarily responsible for the performance of each task tested.

Writing your lab

REMEMBER THAT YOUR WRITING SHOULD BE AS PERFECT AS YOU CAN MAKE IT. If you know you do not write well you should find an editor to check your work before handing the assignment in. In science poor grammar, unclear sentences, and poor writing style are not tolerated. While no grades are assigned directly for writing in this lab, it is unavoidable that labs that are well written will likely receive higher grades than labs written poorly, because the former will be much easier to understand. IT IS NOT THE MARKER’S JOB TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY THINK THE WRITER MEANT IN POORLY WRITTEN MATERIAL.

Form for write-up

1. Maximum word count for report is 300 words (not including Tables). 2. On top right (as a header) put your name, student number, and word count. 3. Your report will have the following parts:  title (centred at top of page)  2-3 sentences as introduction including your research hypothesis (what you think will happen to performance and why).  Results section (titled and centred “Results”) – ideally computer generated tables of the results.  Discussion section (titled and centred “Discussion”) – number your answers to the three questions.

1. Overall presentation of paper, including introduction 20% 2. Results (presentation & clarity of tables) 20% 3. Question one 20% 4. Question two 20% 5. Question three 20%