The Effect of Attention Focus in Errorless and Errorful Practice Conditions on Performance and Learning of Dart Throwing Skill

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of interaction between attention focus and two methods of learning (errorless and errorfull) on performance and learning in throwing darts. It's likely that to change functional difficulty of task, attention focus instruction type has a different effect on performance. 60 female students were randomly selected and they were divided in six groups: internal focus-errorless practice, external focus-errorless practice, control-errorless practice, internal focus-errorfull practice, external focus- errorfull practice, control- errorfull practice. Errorless groups begun the practice with low distance from the target (1.5 m) then they gradually increased the distance (2, 2.37, 3 and 3.5 m). Errorfull groups begun the practice with distance away from the target (3.5 m) then they gradually decreased the distance (3, 2.37, 2 and 1.5 m). Internal attention group focused on elbow and wrist. External attention group focused on dart board. After pretest, subjects performed 5 blocks (60 try in each blocks). They participated in retention test after 48 hours. The results showed that in errorless group there was not significant different between internal and external focus (p>0.05), but in errorfull learning conditions, there was significant different between groups (p=0.043). There was also significant difference between groups (in favor of errorless group) in internal group (p=0.012). It seems practice challenge have important role in attention focus effectiveness. We recommend using errorless learning at the start of practice when they using internal attention focus.