COMPARISON OF THREE TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE OF PERFORMANCE ON THE LEARNING OF ROUNDHOUSE TAEKWONDO KICK OF INEXPERIENCED ADULT LEARNERS

The Roundhouse kick (RHK) is one of the most employed techniques in taekwondo competitions to score on the opponent, since it provides a fast and a powerful attack. However, its effectiveness depends on high technical accuracy. To polish an athlete’s technique, trainers generally provide movement-related information via augmented feedback. Feedback is provided in two different ways, knowledge of result (KR) and knowledge of performance (KP). KR is about the accuracy score of a trial, whereas KP concerns the movement pattern that produces the result. Few studies have focused on understanding which moment of providing feedback on martial arts movement patterns is the most efficient. The purpose of this study was to analyze whether KP would be more effective for taekwondo RHK learning if provided after relatively good trials, after relatively poor trials or when requested by the learner. Eighteen undergraduate students with no prior experience with martial arts were assigned to different groups: a group that received feedback after performing good trials (GOOD), a group that received feedback after poor attempts (POOR) and a group that decided when to receive feedback (SELF). Four blocks of tests were performed, including a pre-test, post-test, retention and transfer. The subjects had to hit a higher amount of RHK on a kick pad according the movement pattern. The ANOVA revealed that the SELF group showed a higher score than the GOOD and POOR groups, while no differences were found between the GOOD and POOR groups.