Effectiveness of the Practice Style and Reciprocal Style of Teaching: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of Mosston and Ashworth’s (2008) practice and reciprocal styles of teaching on motor skill acquisition of school-age and university students. A systematic search in bibliographical databases led to the identification of 23 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Using certain methodological and statistical criteria, we retained six studies for further analysis. We estimated proper effect size statistics for each study and teaching style. Heterogeneity of the effect sizes was almost zero for the reciprocal style and moderate to large for the practice style (I 2 > 50%). Both teaching styles appear to produce large effects, with the practice style (mean d = 1.16) having larger effects than the reciprocal style (mean d = 0.94). This meta-analysis provides an overview and synthesis of relevant studies and highlights both teaching styles for increasing K–12 and university students’ motor skill learning. The results are discussed in light of the Spectrum theory. Subscribe to TPE