The efficacy of demonstrations in teaching children an unfamiliar movement skill: the effects of object-orientated actions and point-light demonstrations

J Sports Sci. 2007 Mar;25(5):559-75. doi: 10.1080/02640410600947074.

Abstract

In Experiment 1, adult and child participants were instructed to imitate a video model performing a bowling action with or without a ball. Participants imitated the action with greater accuracy without a ball and in general adults were more accurate than children. In Experiment 2, adults and children were shown a video or point-light display of the bowling action. There was no difference in movement form between the adult point-light and video groups. In contrast, children were poorer at reproducing the action when viewing point-light compared with video sequences (P < 0.05). The novel point-light display hindered the children's ability to provide conceptual mediation between the presented information and action requirements. In Experiment 3, a child point-light group was provided with perceptual-cognitive training. The perceptual-cognitive training group demonstrated better movement reproduction than a group who viewed the point-light displays with no training (P < 0.05), although there were no differences between participants who received training and those who viewed a video. Children are able to perceive and use relative motion information from a display after some general training, and the effectiveness of demonstrations needs to be judged relative to the task context.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Child
  • Humans
  • Imitative Behavior / physiology*
  • Learning / physiology*
  • Male
  • Motion Perception / physiology
  • Movement / physiology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Sports*
  • Task Performance and Analysis
  • Teaching
  • Visual Perception / physiology*