goal setting: a motivational factor to facilitate learning of volleyball serve in novices

the aim of the present study was to examine the effect of goal setting on learning volleyball serve in novice female university students. the study included 20 female students (aged between 20 and 22 who were not physical education students with no volleyball history) who were randomly assigned to a goal setting or no goal setting group (n1=n2=10) using pretest scores. no goal setting group was provided with feedback on their performance while goal setting group received goal setting programs as well as feedback on their performance in training sessions. in the determined training condition, the two groups performed the task for 11 sessions, 20 trials each session. both groups performed a pretest before the training protocol, acquisition tests during all sessions, an immediate retention test immediately after the last exercise session, and a delayed retention test after 10 days after the immediate test. aahperd volleyball serve (1976) was used to test the performance of the participants. analysis of variance (anova) with repeated measures, independent and paired t tests as well as spss software (version 11.5) were used to analyze the data. results showed no significant difference in the task acquisition between the groups while the goal setting group showed significantly better task performance in the immediate and delayed retention tests indicating that goal setting training condition was much more beneficial for volleyball serve learning than no goal setting training condition.