Intertrial Interval and Gender

INTERTRIAL INTERVAL AND GENDER ON MOTOR SKILL PERFORMANCE

Motor skills can be learned and retained through practice. Successful learning of a motor skill requires repetitive training. Once the skill is mastered, it can be remembered for a long period of time. However, learning depends not just on the number of repeated exposures, but also the temporal distribution of the exposures. Massed practice is that which has no rest periods and the trials take place in close temporal proximity while spaced or distributed practice is that where the trials are separated by periods of rest or other skill learning. Moreover, men and women differ in motor skill ability. In general, men are better at motor skills requiring the use of large muscle movements to perform tasks like catching or throwing a ball while women are better at fine motor skills to perform tasks that are precise in nature like playing the piano. The researchers are interested in distinguishing between performance, learning variables and gender differences in various learning situations. Performance variables temporarily affect the level of proficiency during practice, whereas learning variables will cause more permanent changes in behavior and thus influence learning. A given variable can be both a learning and a performance variable, but the fact that a variable has been found to affect the performance on some task (relative to subjects practicing without that variable) is not sufficient evidence that the learning has also been affected. This study will determine whether different intervals between practices affect performance of writing inverted alphabet letters between male and females. Sixty participants were separated into two main groups, Male and Female, and each group will be assigned to three conditions: no intertrial (ITI) interval (massed condition), 15second ITI interval and 30-second ITI interval (distributed conditions).

Intertrial Interval and Gender

Review of Related Literature Various motor tasks are introduced to us throughout our life. These abilities are usually learned and then retained to us for a long period of time. Such skills include walking, reading, writing, singing, talking etc. Despite the fact that some skills such as talking are distinct to all of us, others skills such as reading, writing or playing basketball are largely learned. Motor skill learning is a procedure that enables motor skills to be performed effortlessly through practice and rehearsals. Karni and Sagi (1993) had found out that when a skill is well-learned, then what was gained was retained for at least 2-3 years or even permanently learned. Because of this, numerous studies were conducted to determine what factors influenced motor skill learning. And one of the factors determined was through practice. In relation, there are two known types of practice: massed and distributed. Burdick (as cited from Murray & Udermann, 2003) defined massed practice as practice that happens without rest between each trial and distributed practice is defined as practice interspersed with rest or other skill learning. According to Shmidt (as cited from Murray & Udermann, 2003) another definition of distributed practice is a practice schedule in which the amount of rest between practice trials is long relative to the trial length or that which the amount of rest between the trials equals or exceeds the amount of time in a trial. Thus, it seems that the defining detail of distributed practice is that rest must be accompanied with the practice; that is, rest is distributed during the trials Many researchers have become interested with this concept; if whether skill learning motor can be enhanced through distributed practice or to massed practice. Prior researchers go back to some of the earliest verbal memory studies conducted by Ebbinghaus. According to Ebbinghaus (as cited in Herdegen & Ford, 2010), active practice or rehearsal improves retention of performance and he added that distributed practice is more effective than massed practice. Dore and Hilgard (as cited in Herdegen and Ford, 2010) support these claims as they found out that performance and rate of improvement was greater for the participants who had longer rest periods than those who had the shorter rest periods. This result showed when they let their participants performed a motor task for about six trials and differ the amount of rest time between each participants one minute trials from one to 11 minut es. Lorge (as cited in

Intertrial Interval and Gender

Herdegen and Ford, 2010) reported a similar finding in which he stated that learning under conditions of distribution is more efficient than learning under the condition of massing. He derived the same result by conducting a study in which participants were asked to trace the cut-out outline of a six-pointed star without touching the edge of the star while looking through a mirror. But, it was Hull in 1943 (as cited Wilson, 2005) who formally examined the effect of practice distribution on performance and learning. He found out that given an equal number of trials, distributed practice for both cognitive and motor tasks produced better performance and skill acquisition than massed practice. A similar study was conducted by Kimble in 1949. Kimble studied the performance and reminiscence in motor learning by printing in an upside-down backwards manner the alphabet and see if distribution of practice had an effect on it. The result showed a significant effect between performance of motor skill and distribution of practice (Haye, 2000). As for differences between male and female performance when it comes to massed practice and practice with intervals, it was found out that when the measure is number of inverted letters per trial, women were superior to men and distributed was better than massed practice. When the measure was mean printing time per letter, faster times were associated with longer inter-trial rest intervals. Hence, for discrete tasks, an inter-trial rest interval delays the response, and for continuous tasks the quality of the response suffers because of interference with the effectors system (Archer, Bourne, and Lyle, 2012). It can be noted that there are various experiments that studied about this concept and still many cognitive psychologists are still interested in studying this. The results from the various researches helped and led to significant implications, especially to students, in improving the study skills and refining academic performances. It could be explained that the advantage to distributed practice is especially obvious for lists, fast presentation rates or unfamiliar stimulus material. Distributed practice is advantageous because massed practice allows the person to associate a word with only a single context. However, distributed practice allows association with various contexts.

Intertrial Interval and Gender

Statement of the Problem This study aims to evaluate the question, does spaced practice lead to better performance in motor skills than massed practice? Furthermore, does gender influence performance in performing the motor skills in spaced practice and massed practice? This experiment would like to test if different lengths of time in the intertrial interval will affect the performance of the motor skill. Participants will be grouped according to gender-male and female and will be assigned to each three temporal conditions for distribution of practice: no intertrial interval (ITI), 15-second ITI, and 30second ITI.

Hypothesis Through printing letters of the alphabet in an inverted or upside-down arrangement, the experimenters hypothesize that participants that will be subjected to the 30-second ITI and 15-second ITI will be able to do better in the task compared to those participants in the no ITI condition who will face more difficulty in executing the skill. And that female participants will perform better than male participants since women are better at fine motor skills like printing inverted alphabet letters. Scores that will be obtained from each trial will be computed and will determine what condition of practice interval actually produces a better performance in the motor skill.

Conceptual Framework

30 Females
20 TRIALS
NO ITI

30 Males
20 TRIALS 20 TRIALS
NO ITI

20 TRIALS

20 TRIALS

20 TRIALS

15SECOND ITI

30SECOND ITI

15SECOND ITI

30SECOND ITI

GOOD PERFORMANCE BETTER PERFORMANCE BEST PERFORMANCE

BAD PERFORMANCE
BETTER PERFORMANCE BEST PERFORMANCE

Intertrial Interval and Gender

Methodology

Participants and Research Design Sixty (60) participants: 30 females and 30 males, with ages ranging from 13-20 years old will have to take part in this study. All the participants will come from the University of the Philippines Cebu College. Participants will be given informed consents and will be grouped according to gender-male and female, and will be exposed into three experimental groups: no intertrial interval (ITI) or massed condition, 15-second ITI and 30-second ITI for the distributed practice. For this study, a 2 (Male versus Female) x 3 (no ITI condition versus 15-second ITI condition versus 30-second ITI condition) within-subjects factorial design will be used. To assure that the dependent variable will be not influenced by the extraneous variables, the experimenters will set controls to avoid confounding variables such as: (1) random assignment of participants to distribute individual differences, (2) reading of instructions twice in an audible tone and giving of a quick demonstration of the task to; (3) instructing participants to remain quiet, to switch off their phones and to sit in chairs with adequate distance to avoid conversing and creating noise; and (6) counterbalancing for equal effects in all treatment conditions.

Materials/ Apparatus Sheets of grid paper and a pencil will be provided for printing the inverted alphabet. A stopwatch and a tap bell will be used for the intervals. Data sheets will also be distributed to gather basic details from the participants.

Procedure Using a 2 (Male versus Female) x 3 (no ITI condition versus 15-second ITI condition versus 30-second ITI condition) within-subjects factorial design, participants will do 20 trials in each of the three conditions. A total of 60 trials for all conditions will be done by each participant. The task is to print letters in alphabetical order in an inverted or upside down manner starting from the right section of the paper to the left within 30 seconds uninterruptedly per trial. They will be asked to write as fast as they

Intertrial Interval and Gender

can since the number of letters printed correctly are to be measured. After every trial, participants will be asked to skip two lines in the data sheet. The three conditions will differ in the length of intertrial interval. For the no ITI condition, participants will continuously print without rest periods in all 20 trials. In the 15-second ITI condition, they will be given 15 seconds of rest periods between each trial. They will be permitted to rest quietly and will be asked after to resume printing after every rest period. Lastly, in the 30-second ITI condition, participants will be given 30 seconds to rest after every trial and resume printing after every rest periods.

Methods of Analysis A two tailed, one-way ANOVA will be used with an alpha level of .05.

References Wilson, G. & Wilson, J (2005). Specificity part VI: the effect of practice distribution & contextual interference on performance & learning. Retrieved from http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/conditionsofpractice2.pdf

Murray, S.R. & Udermann, B.E. (2003). Review: massed versus distributed practice: which is better? Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance Journal, 28, 1.

Herdegen III, R.T. & Ford, K.E. (2010). Massed vs. distributed (Spaced) Practice in Motor Learning. PsychExperiments. Retrieved from http://www.psych.uni.edu/psychexps/ instronlypage/massed_spaced.htm Haye, Nicky(2000). The Foundations of Psychology 3rd edition. London: High Holborn House G Valcante, W Roberson, W R Reid, W D Wolking (1989).Effects of wait-time and intertrial interval durations on learning by children with multiple handicaps. Retrived from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1286151/

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Balsam, P.D. and Payne, D. (1979). Intertrial interval and unconditioned stimulus durations in autoshaping; Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 477-482 Hawkins, R.D. and Bower, G.H. Psychology of learning and motivation; Volume 23, pp 79-109 Howat, M.G. and Grant, D.A. (2000). Influence of intertrial interval during extinction on spontaneous recovery; Journal of Experimental Psychology, Volume 59, pp 279 280 Metze, L.P. (1970). Intertrial Interval, Concurrent and Previous Trial Reward Magnitude, and Pattern Responding in the Discrete Trials Lever Press Apparatus; Journal of Experimental Psychology, Volume 1, pp 21-32 Archer, E., Bourne J., Lyle E., Inverted-alphabet printing as a function of intertrial rest and sex. Retrieved from: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/52/5/322/