The purpose of this study was to determine whether the
precision of verbal feedback affected the accuracy of a standing long jump
performance. Sixty-eight female participants (M age=21.44±1.01) were randomly
assigned to two experimental groups. In total, each subject performed nine jumps
at three distances, i.e. 50 cm (3 trials), 75 cm (3 trials) and 100 cm (3
trials). Group 2 performed jumps in a reverse order. During the task execution,
the study participants received verbal feedback at different levels of
precision (no feedback; information that the jump was either:
too far
,
close,
or
correct
;
information about the distance in centimetres). The results of statistical
analysis indicated that the speed of changes in jump accuracy depended on the
precision of verbal feedback. The difference between an actual jump result and
a target result increased proportionally with jump length. With a large number
of trials, verbal feedback accuracy does not affect significantly the precision
of women’s long jump performance. However, when the high accuracy of task
performance needs to be obtained quickly, feedback ought to define the exact
difference between the target and the actual jump results. The current findings
also indicate that providing no feedback does not contribute to improving motor
task performance accuracy.