The Effect of Internal-External Attention Focus on Fine Motor Skills (Handwriting) in Elementary School Students

The type of attention focus is effective on the outcome and efficiency of motor skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of internal-external focus on fine motor performance (handwriting) of the elementary school students. In this semi-experimental study, 60 female students (mean age: 8.12 + - 0.21 years) from one of the elementary schools in Tehran participated which randomly divided into three groups. The groups were: 1) External attention group: In this condition, subjects were told to pay attention to the text written on the white board while writing. 2) Internal attention group. In this condition, the subjects were instructed to note their writing style while writing the text. 3) Control group: In this condition the subjects performed the handwriting task without any instructions. The results of multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the process of fine motor skill performance (handwriting) was not significant in any of the internal, external attention groups compared to the control group (P >0.05).