The Impact of Skill Level Matching in Cooperative Dyadic Interaction on Learning Table Tennis Forehand Skills among Adolescent Girls

Dyad training is one of the new practicing methods which has received growing attention due to its increasing practice efficiency in skills.

The present study aims to investigate the impact of skill level matching in cooperative dyadic interaction on learning forehand table tennis skills in adolescent girls.

Participants were selected based on convenience sampling from among 24 junior high school girls in Nahavand city, and were randomly divided into two groups of Novice-Novice and Novice-Expert. Both groups performed six sessions of participatory dyad training with their respective arrangement (novice- novice, novice- expert), each session consisting of 20 sets of 3-minute with a 1-minute rest time between the sets. Using table tennis forehand shot accuracy test, the motor performance was measured in the pre-test, post-test, retention and transfer stages (merely forehand performance with increasing throwing speed of ball launcher machine).

The results revealed that both Novice-Novice and Novice-Expert groups displayed significant progress learning of table tennis forehand skills. Moreover, the Novice-Expert performed better in the post-test, retention and transfer stages in comparison to the Novice-Novice group.

As a result, Novice-Expert arrangement facilitates learning table tennis forehand skill more than Novice-Novice arrangement during participatory dyad training.