Reinforcement: a means to improve physical performance

Introduction

The Study is concerned with reinforcement as a means to improve physical performance. The study was conducted to find out the effect of reinforcement as motivational tool on motor performance of Children of ages ten-eleven years. Efforts were made to find out whether there is a difference between skill performance before the application of reinforcement and after the application of reinforcement.

Method

Fifty male pupils were randomly selected to serve as subjects for the study. The subjects were constituted into two groups: Controlled and experimental. All the subjects were tested on two major skills-speed and accuracy The mean, mean difference, standard deviation and student t-ratio were used for the data analysis. Each hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance.

Result

The study revealed that there was no significant difference between the first and second performance of the controlled group in speed due to non application for reinforcement before the second performance as evident in the student t-ratio 0.381 which was below the critical value 2.064 at 0.05 level of significance. The study showed that the subjects in the experimental group had a lot of improvement in their performance during the second trial after the application of reinforcement as shown in their student t-ratio of 5.167 at 0.05 level of significant which is above the critical value. The controlled group did not show any significant difference between the first and second trials due to non appl9ication of reinforcement before the second trial since the observed value of 0.222 at 0.05 level of significance was less than the table value of 2.064. The better performance during the second trial due to reinforcement as shown in the calculated student t-ratio 5.714 which was above the table value of 2.064.

Discussion/Conclusion

The study concluded that reinforcement as a motivational technique brought a significant increase in the physical performance with reference to speed and accuracy while those who are not motivated record almost the same performance thus showing insignificant change. For pupils to perform well the teachers should continue to motivate pupils by applying various motivational techniques for effective qualitative and more meaningful teaching to motor skills in the elementary schools.

References

[1]. Akinboye J.0. (1978) Nigeria Journal of Psychology. 2, (2) 36-39.
[2]. Owolabi, E.d (1993). Journal of Nigeria Association of Sports Science and Medicine. 5, (2) 25-28
[3]. Sohi, A.S. (1976) International journal of Sports Psychology. 7, (2) 21-26