Instructional cues in the teaching of dribbling in school physical education classes

Background and Study Aim. A cue is a short and concise instruction about the key aspects of a successful performance. In addition to an attentional strategy, an instructional cue has been considered as a Physical Education teaching content for developing the students' knowledge about performing motor skills. This study investigated the effects of perceptual and motor instructional cues on the learning of dribbling during physical education classes at school. Material and Methods. The sample comprised 81 students from three elementary full-time classes of a public school, aged between 6 to 9 years old. The study consisted of three experimental groups each one from a given PE classroom: (1) perceptual cue - “eye on the circuit”; (2) motor cue - “pushing the ball at waist level”; and control group – no cue. Results. Results showed that motor cue group improved the performance in relation to all measures (stage of development, ball control, and runtime). In addition, they revealed that this group had superior performance comparatively to perceptual cue and control groups. Conclusions. This study examined the effect of verbal motor cues on students' learning of dribbling in a Physical Education class. The results showed that the verbal motor cue functioned as a useful tool for providing students with information about the correct technique for dribbling. This information helped students to understand and execute the correct technique, resulting in improved dribbling performance. Overall, this study suggests that verbal motor cues can be a valuable teaching tool for Physical Education teachers when designing practice tasks. By selecting instructions that have the potential to improve students' knowledge about performance, teachers can help their students to acquire skills more effectively. These findings have important implications for the design of practice tasks in Physical Education classes and can help to optimize student learning outcomes.