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The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task

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Motor Competence and Difficulty of Self-Set Goals on Motor Learning.

Brenner Ottero¹, Rafael Carvalho¹, Lívia Penido¹

¹Departamento de Esportes, Escola de Educação Física, Fisioterapia e Terapia Ocupacional, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brasil.

Journal of Motor Behavior

|November 22, 2024

Summary

Children with higher motor competence learn new motor skills better but do not set more challenging goals. Motor competence impacts skill acquisition, not goal difficulty in children.

Keywords:

children goal setting motor skill self-controlled goal

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Area of Science:

Child Development
Motor Learning
Motor Skill Acquisition

Background:

Motor competence influences task perception and goal setting in children.
Children with higher motor competence may perceive tasks as less challenging.
This can lead to more ambitious self-set goals during motor learning.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between motor competence and self-set goal difficulty in children.
To determine if higher motor competence leads to more challenging goals during motor skill acquisition.
To examine how motor competence affects performance in motor learning tasks.

Main Methods:

Included 32 children aged 8-10 years, from highest and lowest motor competence terciles.
Assessed motor competence using the Motor Competence Assessment.
Analyzed self-set goal difficulty and performance on a bean bag throwing task during learning, retention, and transfer phases.

Main Results:

No significant correlation was found between motor competence and the difficulty of self-set goals.
Children with higher motor competence demonstrated enhanced performance in acquisition, retention, and transfer.
Motor competence was associated with improved motor learning outcomes.

Conclusions:

Motor competence is linked to better motor learning and performance.
It does not appear to influence the difficulty of goals children set for themselves.
Future research could explore other factors influencing goal setting in motor learning.