Abstracts Education

A Peer-Assisted Reciprocal Intervention Using Mobile Devices to Deliver Video Modeling, Criteria Information for Verbal Feedback, and Video Feedback to Increase Motor Skill Acquisition and Performance of the Tennis Serve for Novice Middle School Student-Athletes

by Derek Adam Grabski

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of a tennis serve intervention on motor skill performance and motor skill procedural knowledge of novice middle school student-athletes who were unprepared for interscholastic competition. The intervention package introduced mobile device technology within Mosston and Ashworth’s (2002) reciprocal style to implement digital task cards with a video model and three feedback conditions: peer feedback using criteria information, peer-assisted video feedback, and peer-assisted video feedback with criteria information. Results from three single-case experiments showed that the intervention improved performance during practice and produced positive learning outcomes for all six participants. Social validity interviews showed satisfaction with the amount of feedback provided within the reciprocal style, an understanding of the importance of using the proper procedure for the tennis serve, and performance change significant enough for inter-scholastic competition. Implications for research included a need for more specific standards for treatment integrity and the possible restructuring of the experimental design to obtain valid results from an intervention focused on peer-assisted video feedback with criteria information throughout instruction. Implications for practice included ways to incorporate mobile device technology for teaching the tennis serve, focus on knowledge of performance over knowledge of results feedback for procedural knowledge acquisition, and gather information to continuously improve instruction.