The Role of Self - Control Feedback in Learning through Observation

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of self-control feedback on relative and absolute timing through observational and physical practices. Participants (n=90) were randomly assigned to physical and observational practice (self-control, yoked, and instructor KR) groups. They practiced a sequential timing task, which required participants to press four keys (2, 6, 8, and 4) respectively with regard to relative and absolute timing. Self-control group received KR about the model's performance whenever they requested it whereas the other groups (yoked, instructor) had no control on the feedback schedules. They performed 72 trials during the acquisition phase and 12 trials in retention and transfer phases. ANOVA with repeated measures and a multi-factorial ANOVA were conducted to analyze the collected data. The results demonstrated that during the acquisition phase, relative timing errors were lower in the self-control and instructor groups. During the retention and transfer phases, relative timing errors were lower for the self-control compared with the yoked and instructor groups. In addition, during the retention and transfer phase, absolute timing errors were lower for the yoked compared with the self-control group.