The effect of sports vision exercises on the visual skills of university students

Vision is one of the most important special senses and is the primary source of external information. The role of vision in our everyday lifestyles is immense and adequate visual skills are needed for simple tasks which include reading and writing, that are especially important for students. Stress is an important factor which most students deal with, and along with other external factors, could adversely affect the ability to effectively perform many visual skills. This study aims to determine if sports vision exercises could improve visual skills and thereby enhance motor and cognitive performance. A 169 second year physiology students (18-22 years of age) participated in the study. The students were divided into control (n=78) and experimental groups (n=91) and pre and post sports vision tests were conducted. This included testing visual skills such as visual acuity, eye dominance, focusing, tracking, vergence, sequencing, eye-hand coordination, visualization and reflex. The results showed a significant improvement in the sequencing and eye-hand coordination tests in the experimental group, whilst a non-significant improvement (control group) was observed in the visual acuity, visualization, tracking, vergence and reflex tests. The improvements (except for focusing) were greater in the experimental group than in the control group. The study clearly showed that correct sports vision training can improve certain visual skills and lead to an enhancement of motor and cognitive learning and performance. Sports vision exercises are therefore an efficient method of improving certain visual skills and possibly minimizing any defects caused by stress.