Self-Regulation Differences during Athletic Practice by Experts, Non-Experts, and Novices

Basketball experts, non-experts, and novices were studied for differences in their self-regulatory forethought and self-reflection processes regarding their free-throw shooting. Forty-three adolescent boys participated individually in the study, which involved a practice session in a gymnasium. The subjects were queried regarding their forethought goals, strategy choice, self-efficacy as well as their self-reflection attributions and feelings of satisfaction as they practiced their shooting. Among the significant results, experts set more specific goals, selected more technique-oriented strategies, made more strategy attributions, and displayed higher levels of self-efficacy than non-experts and novices. Forethought phase processes intercorrelated significantly as did self-reflection phase processes. In addition, self-reflection attributions were predictive of forethought strategy selection during further efforts to learn. The results were discussed in terms of a social cognitive model of self-regulation.