Association among fitness components, anxiety, and confidence following aerobic training in aquarunning.

The relationship of actual and perceived physiological and physical changes, i.e., VO2max, percent body fat, body weight, and perceived fitness change, to changes in anxiety and confidence were investigated. 15 adults volunteered to participate in an 8-wk. exercise program and 15 adults volunteered to be in a nonexercising control group. Physiological and physical measures (VO2max, percent body fat, body weight) were taken at Week 1 (pretest week) and Week 10 (posttest week) of the program. Each subject completed the Competitive Sport Anxiety Inventory-II prior to and just after the 8-wk. training program. Cognitive and somatic anxiety scores significantly decreased for both groups over the 8-wk. period. Confidence scores did not change for either group. The physiological variable and the physical measures were significantly related to cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, or confidence. It appears that both the aquarunning exercise and quiet rest sessions can be associated with anxiety within 8 wk.

Gender differences in motor performance of 50- to 79-year-old adults.

This study was conducted to assess gender and age differences among 73 men and women (50-59, 60-69, and 70-79 yr.) on five motor tasks (balance, standing long jump, sit and reach, hand grip, and softball throw). Differences between men and women on the standing long jump, hand grip, and the softball throw favored men. The men had better performance scores than the women on each of these tasks. An interaction of gender by age was noted on the balance task. Women 50-59 yr. old balanced significantly longer than the men of that age group. Age differences were found for the standing long jump, hand grip, and softball throw. The 50-59 age group performed significantly better than the 60-69 and the 70-79 age groups. Performance decreased on each task across age groups. These findings suggest gender differences in motor performance of older adults as has been noted for children.

The influence of proficiency level, transfer distality, and gender on the contextual interference effect.

This study examined the impact of high and low proficiency level, transfer distality, and gender on the contextual interference effect with an open skill. Subjects were separated into two levels of proficiency based on performance on a pretest similar to the experimental task. Analysis of error scores during acquisition indicated that the partitioning of subjects according to ability level had been successful. Transfer distality was varied by presenting subjects with two tasks varying in similarity to the acquisition task. Analysis of absolute constant, constant, variable, and total error scores in transfer strongly suggested that subjects' consistency rather than response bias was affected by the experimental variables. The findings suggested that, for the task used in this study, proficiency level does not account for gender differences in the contextual interference effect, as the effect was only reliably found for females. For coincident timing skills, it appears that there may be two distinct conclusions drawn from the results of this study: contextual interference only benefits female subjects' consistency and the effect of contextual interference increases with the distality of transfer, regardless of the subjects' proficiency level.

The relationship between children's perceived and actual motor competence.

To examine the relationship between children's perceived and actual motor competence, 218 children between the ages of 9 and 11 years individually completed the Motor Skill Perceived Competence Scale. After completing the scale, the subject's actual motor competence was measured on a series of gross motor tests. Incomplete principal component analysis identified two actual motor competence dimensions from the motor test battery. The two factors included a lower-body and an upper-body factor of actual motor competence. A two-factor analysis of variance indicated that the boys and girls differed in perceived competence and actual competence. The boys showed higher perceived competence and actual motor competence. In addition, the 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old age groups differed from each other on the lower-body factor of actual motor competence. As age increased, lower-body competence increased. Regression analysis indicated that actual and perceived motor competence was moderately correlated. Adding age to the multiple regression model significantly increased the multiple correlation. Adding gender to the model did not increase the correlation, showing that perceived competence was a function of actual motor competence and age, and this finding held for boys and girls. These findings showed that 9-, 10-, and 11-yr-old children can assess personal motor competence. However, practitioners should attempt to understand children's perceived competence given that their assessments are not extremely accurate.

Influence of perceived competence and causal dimension orientation on expectations, persistence, and performance during perceived failure.

This investigation was conducted to compare the influence of high and low perceived competence (PC) and various causal dimension orientations on expectations, persistence, and performance while perceiving failure on a motor task. Based on a response to a PC scale, 84 junior high school students were selected to participate in this study. Separately, 42 low and 42 high PC subjects were oriented to perceive their performance on a stabilometer balancing task as due to: (a) internal, controllable, unstable factors (ICU); (b) internal, uncontrollable, stable factors (IUS); or (c) nothing in particular (NDO). Subjects then received fictitious negative feedback over 15 trials. Results revealed that persistence, expectations, and performance dependent measures were significant for PC and Causal Dimension groups. More specifically, the High PC group persisted longer, had higher expectations, and performed significantly better than the Low PC group. Furthermore, the subjects presented ICU orientations persisted for a longer amount of time, revealed higher expectations over trials, and performed significantly better over trials than the subjects in the IUS and NDO groups. These findings suggest that perceived competence and causal dimensional orientations influence children's expectations, persistence, and performance when perceiving failure on a motor task.