Effects of different types of analogy instruction on the performance and inter-joint coordination of novice darts learners

Objectives: Analogy instruction has an advantage on motor skill learning. The effect of analogy instructional type on kinematics, particularly on inter-joint coordination, is an extremely understudied area of research. Against this background, this paper experimentally controlled the quality and quantity of the to-be-learned information included in instruction and applied principal component analysis (PCA) to time-series data of joint angles to examine whether different instruction methods could change inter-joint coordination structure. Methods and design: Forty-five novice participants, fifteen each for three independent groups, performed dartthrowing training with either explicit, rule-based biomechanical metaphor (RBM), or information-integrated biomechanical metaphor (IIM) instructions. Performance and kinematics were evaluated in pre-test, retention test, and transfer test that can increase psychological pressure. The dependent variables were performance outcome, joint variability, and measurements derived from PCA. Results: Analyses revealed a significant test effect for the performance outcome, joint variability, and PCA measurements. No significant group effect or group-test interaction was found for the performance outcome and joint variability. Significant test effect and test-group interaction were found for the wrist PC1 loading. The IIM group means significantly increased in the retention and transfer tests. The explicit and RBM group means showed no significant effects of the test. These results suggest that IIM learners significantly changed the PCA structure in the retention test and maintained it in the transfer test, whereas explicit and RBM learners did not. Conclusions: The findings provide the first insight into the effects of information-integrated biomechanical metaphors on the acquisition of inter-joint coordination structures for novice learners.