Eamon Brown, Stephen Chipps, Anthony Ellison, Lachlan Fear

This research was conducted during the taught unit ‘Exercise Psychology – HMSC236’ and was supervised by Dr. Stephen Burke.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether a combination of practice techniques was better than a single practice technique, including both mental imagery and physical practice. Eight groups of four subjects were given practice strategies over a three week period. Based on the assessment of these groups, it was found that a combination of both mental imagery and physical practice yielded better improvements in performance in comparison to a single practice strategy or a combination of mental imagery.

KEYWORDS: mental imagery, internal imagery, external imagery, physical practice, basketball free throw, performance improvement.

INTRODUCTION:

The purpose of this study was to determine the most effective and beneficial practice strategy in the performance of the basketball free throw, to collect accurate and reliable data for analysis, to relate our findings to previous studies and promote the use of mental imagery.

We hope to expand on the literature found, and produce conclusions that are unequivocal. For this experiment, a quantitative approach was employed in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study.

Previous research has been focused on determining whether mental imagery is beneficial to performance, and if so which method is most effective, and if mental imagery combined with physical practice is optimal for performance. Therefore, we hope to find from our experiment which practice strategy yields the best performance results. In numerous studies and investigations, mental imagery has been shown to facilitate physical practice and performance positively, with few showing that mental imagery does not positively affect performance (Etnier & Landers, 1996; Grouios, 1992; Hall, Rodgers & Barr, 1990; Lerner, Ostrow, Yura & Etzel, 1996; Savoy, 1997; Weinberg, Jackson, and Chan, 1983).

We hypothesis that the group with the combination of internal and external imagery and physical practice techniques will yield the best performance improvements.

METHODS:

SUBJECTS:

32 subjects from a Year 10 P.E. class were chosen for the experiment. The students were aged between 15 and 16 years old, and there were 15 males and 17 females. There were eight groups with two males and two females in each group, except group 7. All subjects were of a variety of skill but were relatively inexperienced.

TEST MEASUREMENTS:

Upon each attempt, the individual was graded based upon the success of the shot. The grading system was as follows:

0 = miss
1 = backboard and out
2 = rim and out
3 = backboard and in
4 = rim and in
5 = swish

PROCEDURE:

At the initial meeting, the subjects were explained the testing procedures and the background of why the research was being conducted. After explained the relevant terminology, the subjects were asked to complete the IUQ. They were then taken individually to the indoor school basketball court and asked to shoot 10 attempts at the ring from the free throw line. Each group consisted of either a single or combination of external or internal imagery, physical practice, and a control group who were asked simply to continue there normal lives as they would, and return for the final testing day.

On the first practice day, each group was taken aside by one of the researchers, and read
a descriptive analysis of the task that they had to, and additionally on each practice day after that. The duration of each practice session was 5 minutes for each task (ie. 5 minutes for internal imagery, 5 minutes for external imagery, 5 minutes for physical practice, or 10 and 15 minutes for a combination).
The subjects practiced for 3 weeks, and then completed their final testing. After this testing, the subjects who practiced mental imagery completed a Mental Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ).

RESULTS:

Overall, from responses of the questionnaires, the subjects did not participate in regular mental imagery sessions, and it was revealed only a minority of subjects did not use the mental imagery techniques before each shot in the final testing.

The main statistical findings in this investigation suggest there were significant differences (p<0.05) between the initial total scores and the final total scores (sig. 0.031) of all the groups, which indicates that improvement generally did occur through the practice techniques. Also there was significance between the initial and final scores of group 5, group 6, and group 8, indicating that the combinations of mental imagery and physical practice is best for performance improvements. However, there was no significant differences between the control group and the other seven groups.

Figure 1: Comparison of Initial and Final Total Scores of Each Group:

 
Table 1: A summary of the major findings from the results.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS:

From the interpretation of findings, we are able to conclude on our research questions. Whether performance was found to be positively affected by mental imagery produced equivocal results. However, the practice strategies found to enhance performance the most where in fact the combinations of mental imagery and physical practice. The answer to whether or not which imagery technique is most beneficial for performance contradicts the opinions of literature. This is so because during assessment of the single strategies, external imagery was most beneficial, a combination of external imagery and physical practice was better than the combination of internal imagery and physical practice.

The hypothesis that the group with the combination of internal and external imagery and physical practice techniques will yield the best performance improvements was supported as this group improved the most from their initial score when considering the points improvement (eg. group 8 had an improvement of 42 points, where group 6 had an improvement of 36 points). However, group 6, according to the ANOVA, improved the most significantly. Research supports this as it has found that a combination of physical practice and mental imagery is better than physical or mental imagery by themselves (Grouios, 1992; Pie, Tenenbaum, Bar-Eli, Eyal, Levy-Kolker, Sade, & Landers, 1996; Onestak, 1991).

Finally, these findings have various practical implications which can be applied to a variety of settings. Some of these implications involve that a combination of imagery and physical practice is most beneficial to improvement and performance, and therefore when athletes are training, they should not only physically practice, but also incorporate some mental imagery techniques in the training regime to assist performance. It is important to note that this should be applicable to any sporting event or activity, not just the basketball free throw.

Recommendations from this study would be to have a larger sample size, and conduct the research over a greater period to enhance the reliability of data collected. The conclusions of this study allow a further recommendation aimed toward further research being conducted to determine the optimal training techniques to further improve performance. This would hopefully further the results obtained in this experiment, and that of other researchers, to enable final conclusions to be made about mental imagery and its effects on sporting activities, which still remain equivocal.

REFERENCE LIST:

Etnier, J.L. and Landers, D.M. (1996). The Influence of Procedural Variables on the Efficacy of Mental Practice. The Sport Psychologist, 10, 48-57.

Grouios, G. (1992). Mental Practice: A Review. Journal of Sport Behaviour, 15 (1), 42-59.

Hall, C.R., Rodgers, W.M. and Barr, K.A. (1990). The Use of Imagery by Athletes in Selected Sports. The Sport Psychologist, 4, 1-10.

Lerner, B.S., Ostrow, A.C., Yura, M.T. and Etzel, E.F. (1996). The Effects of Goal-Setting and Imagery Training Programs on the Free-Throw Performance of Female Collegiate Basketball Players. The Sport Psychologist, 10, 382-397.

Onestak, D.M. (1991). Mental Practice. Journal of Sport Behaviour, 14 (4), 247-282.

Pie, J.S., Tenenbaum, G., Bar-Eli, M., Eyal, N., Levy-Kolker, N., Sade, S. and Landers, D.M. (1996). Imagery Orientation and Vividness: Their Effect on a Motor Skill Performance. Journal of Sport Behaviour, 19 (1), 32-48.

Savoy, C. (1997). Two Individualized Mental Training Programs for a Team Sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 28, 259-270.

Weinberg, R.S., Chan, R. and Jackson, A. (1983). Mental Preparation Strategies and Performance: Is a Combination of Techniques Better than a Single Technique? Journal of Sport Behaviour, 1, 211-216.

Email correspondence: S.Burke@mackillop.acu.edu.au