Self-Controlled Video Feedback Facilitates the Learning of Tactical Skills in Tennis

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effect of self-controlled video feedback on the learning of tactical motor skills in tennis, and additionally, whether this was affected by learners’ self-efficacy and self-regulative skills. Method: Twenty-three intermediately skilled tennis players were assigned to either a self-controlled group that was provided video feedback on request or a yoked group that received an identical, externally controlled video feedback schedule. In three training sessions participants practiced serve and volley play. Video feedback with attentional cueing and transitional statements that focused solely on individual tactical gameplay was provided by a licensed tennis coach. Individual tactical performance was measured with a custom designed Tactical Tennis Tool (TTT) in a pretest, posttest and in a one-week retention test. Before each test self-efficacy was measured, and a questionnaire was administered to measure self-regulative skills. Results: Analyses revealed significantly larger improvements in tactical performance relative to the pretest for the self-controlled group than for the yoked group in both the posttest and the one-week retention test. No differences were found in self-efficacy. Finally, the improvements in tactical performance were not predicted by self-efficacy and/or self-regulative skills. Conclusion: The advantage of self-controlled video feedback extends to the learning of a complex tactical task in tennis. Future research should verify the observed benefits of a self-controlled learning environment in comparison to a coach-controlled learning environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Motor learning
• self-control
• self-controlled feedback
• self-regulation
• tactical skills
• tennis
• video feedback

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all participants for participating in this study. They also thank Marije T. Elferink-Gemser for providing the Dutch questionnaire for measuring self-regulation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2023.2275801

Notes

¹ Spearman correlation between general self-efficacy and task-specific self-efficacy score in the retention test was not significant, r (22) = .094, p > .05.

² Note that the high amount of feedback requests after unsuccessful trials in our study (94.7%) should be interpreted cautiously. Requesting feedback after a point was lost or won may not be equivalent to the learner perceiving the trial to be successful or unsuccessful.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NWO grant 023.015.046.