The Effects of Motivational Self-Talk on Self-Efficacy and Performance in Novice Undergraduate Students

The Effects of Motivational Self-Talk on Self-Efficacy and Performance in Novice Undergraduate Students

The study of self-talk in sport has provided evidence on a few of the effects of self-talk on task performance. However, one of the issues which remains unclear in the self-talk literature is the matching of task’s motor demands with the different types of self-talk cues, the so called matching hypothesis. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of motivational self-talk on students’ selfefficacy levels and on their performance in a precision-oriented task. Forty-four (Mage = 20.93, SD = 2.31) physical education undergraduate students with no experience in dart throwing (22 females and 22 males) were randomly assigned into two groups: the experimental group that used motivational self-talk and the control group. A baseline and two performance trials were performed. Mixed model ANOVAs revealed group by time interaction for selfefficacy (p<0.05). Post-hoc analysis showed that self-efficacy in the motivational self-talk group increased significantly (p<0.001), whereas the self-efficacy of the control group had no significant changes. Furthermore, no significant differences were found in the performance scores between the experimental and the control group. The fact that only self-efficacy levels changed over time, whereas the performance levels didn’t, is discussed based on thecontradictory findings of the matching hypothesis.