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Relation between field independence and open - closed skills

University of British Columbia

The problem of this study was to determine if athletes representative of open skills differ from athletes representative of closed skills in the perceptual style of field independence. It was hypothesized that differences in perceptual style exist between athletes of open and closed skills, and between athletes and non-athletes. This study also investigated perceptual differences: between advanced athletes and less-advanced athletes; between basketball positional groups; and between different sports of hockey, basketball, swimming, and gymnastics. A total of sixty-one male university students were tested for field independence by use of the rod and frame test (RFT) and the group embedded figures test (GEFT), as well as tested on a visual search test (VST). Scores from the tests were placed into groups, each group having a mean and standard deviation score for each of the tests. RFT mean scores were computed for absolute error (AE), variable error (VE), and constant error (CE). Correct numbers identified and numbers missed were analyzed from the VST. The GEFT score was the number of correctly identified figures. F-ratios for multivariate tests of equality of mean vectors were computed for the groups: Open-Closed; Athlete-Non-athlete; Advanced-Less-advanced; Outside-Inside basketball positional groups; Hockey-Basketball; and Gymnastic-Swimming. Results from this study showed:(1)Open skill athletes (Hockey and Basketball players) do not differ in perceptual style from closed skill athletes (Gymnasts and Swimmers); (2) athletes do not differ significantly from non-athletes in measures of field independence; (3) individual univariate tests between the variables from the GEFT and RFT (AE, VE) showed that the basketball group was more field independent than the hockey group; and (4) the amount of shared variance between the two tests of field independence (RFT and GEFT) was low (less than 1270) and limits the above conclusions.

Text

2011-03-23

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/32783

Physical Education

University of British Columbia

Graduate