Abstract:

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of Mosston and Ashworth’s (2008) practice and reciprocal styles of teaching on motor skill acquisition of school and university students. A systematic search in bibliographical databases led to the identification of 23 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Using certain methodological and statistical criteria, we retained six studies for further analysis. We estimated proper Effect Size (ES) statistics for each study and each teaching style. Heterogeneity of the ESs was almost negligence for the reciprocal style and moderate to large for the practice style (I² > 50%). Both teaching styles appear to produce rather large effects, with the practice style (mean d = 1.16) having larger effects than the reciprocal style (mean d = 0.94). This meta-analysis provides an overview and synthesis of relevant studies and highlights both teaching styles for increasing K-12 and university students’ motor skill learning. The results are discussed in light of the Spectrum theory.

Keywords: meta-analysis, Spectrum, practice style, reciprocal style, motor skill

Publisher's Version