Effect of Technical and Quiet Eye Training on the Gaze Behavior and Long-Term Learning of Volleyball Serve Reception in 10 to 12-Year-Old Female

Abstract

Background: A quiet eye is the final fixation or tracking before moving on, which requires concentration and attention, and is an effective way of teaching interceptive tasks. Methods: In the current semi-experimental study, 20 volunteer female students from a volleyball center of Shiraz District 1 (mean age = 12.10, SD = 0.718) were selected as the participants from February 2017 to February 2018. After taking the pre-test, they were randomly divided into two groups of 10 (technical training and quiet eye training). The intended task was to receive volleyball serve with the forearm from three receiving areas of the mini-volleyball court. To measure the accuracy of the volleyball serve reception, a volleyball Serve Reception Test by forearm was used in mini-volleyball court. Ergoneers eye tracking (EET) was used to record the visual data. After the pre-test, the participants took part in 9 separate training sessions three sessions a week, and 48 hours after the last training session, the first retention test and one month later the second retention test was performed. Data were analyzed by 2×3 mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) of quiet eye duration and performance, using SPSS software at a significant level of P≤0.05. Results: The results showed that the mean performance of the quiet eye training group increased from 4.30±1.76 in pre-test to 11±1.76 in the first retention and 12±2 in long-term retention in comparison to the technical training group (P = 0.007). However, there was no significant difference between the mean quiet eye duration of the quiet eye and technical training groups (P = 0.512). Conclusions: It seems that quiet eye training has a significant effect on the long-term learning of beginners compared to technical training, but it does not have a significant difference in the duration of beginners’ quiet eye compared to technical training.