Contributions of External Attentional Focus, Enhanced Expectancies and Autonomy Support to Enhance Learning Skills of Throwing Darts

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of the combination of attention (external focus) and internal motivation (autonomy support and enhanced expectancies) on learning the skill of throwing darts.
Methods: For this purpose, 60 women participated in the study. our study included 4 groups: a) autonomy support - external focus (AS-EF); b) enhanced expectancies - external focus (EE-EF); C) enhanced expectancies - autonomy support (EE-AS); and d) enhanced expectancies - autonomy support - external focus (EE-AS-EF). Participants were asked to throw darts at a target with their non-dominant arm. In the EE conditions, they received (false) positive social-comparative feedback. In the AS conditions, they were allowed to throw 5 of 10 trials in each block with their dominant arm chosen by them. In the EF conditions, participants were asked to focus on the target. on the post-test after the end of the training period and retention and transfer test 24 hours after practice, the AS-EE-EF group had the highest accuracy scores and outperformed all other groups.
Results: The results of the between-group comparison for throwing accuracy showed that the EE-AS-EF group was a significant difference compared to the other groups.
Conclusions: The findings provide evidence that enhanced expectancies, autonomy support, and an external focus can contribute in an additive style to optimize motor performance and learning.