The Effect of Randomizing the Order of Practice Trials in the Dyad Practice of a Golf Putting

Abstract

Shea, Wulf, & Whitcare (1999) demonstrated that practicing in dyad resulted in more increase in learning efficiency and effectiveness than practicing individually when the observational and physical practice were alternated on each trial and dialog was inserted between practice trials. Alternating observational and physical practice and inserting dialog engaged the learner more in the active problem-solving process of learning than practicing individually. The present study investigated the effect of dyad practice when the order of observational and physical practice trials was randomized and no dialog was included. Thirty-six participants were asked to putt the ball as close to the target (5 m away) as possible. Actual distance (in cm) from the target was measured as a performance score. Participants performed 30 acquisition trials and 10 retention trials 24 hour later. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions. In the individual condition participants practiced the task individually. In the dyad-alternate condition one person practiced the task while the other observed on each trial. In the dyad-random order condition the order of observational and physical practice trials was randomized. The results indicated that the dyad-alternate condition did not result in better learning than the individual condition. However, the dyad-random order condition revealed significantly better retention performance than the individual condition. These findings suggest that randomizing the order of observational and physical practice trials in dyad practice causes the learners to invest more cognitive effort and to more actively engage in the problem solving processes than alternating on each trial, as a result, produces stronger learning effectiveness and efficiency.