Performers tend to direct their attention to themselves under stress. Such self-focused attention in turn interrupts the flow of movement execution and therefore degrades skill performance (Baumeister, 1984). The present study was designed to examine the effect of external and internal attentional focus on acquisition and transfer performance of a sport skill under psychological stress. The participants were 57 college students and randomly assigned into one of the three groups with an equal number of males (n=12) and females (n=7) in each group: internal focus, external focus, and control. The task involved dribbling and shooting floor hockey balls toward a target. The study consisted of a pretest, an acquisition phase, and a transfer test. On the pretest, participants were asked to perform 10 trials of the shooting task from a distance of 10 yards. During the acquisition phase, participants observed a skillful demonstration and then performed 40 trials of the task under their respective attentional focus condition. Participants in the internal focus group were instructed to direct their attention to the shooting movements whereas those in the external focus group were asked to focus their attention on the speed and direction of the shot ball. Participants in the control group were not given any instructions regarding attentional focus. To induce psychological stress, a video camera was set up at angle of 30 degrees to the participant as he/she faced the target. In addition, the participant was required to perform the task in a group setting and informed of performance evaluation by two field hockey experts. Following the acquisition trials, a transfer test involving 10 trials of shooting performance from a new distance of 15 yards was conducted. A 3 x 2 (Group x Test) ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor revealed a significant Group x Test interaction effect (p<.05). Follow-up analyses indicated that while no group differences in shooting performance were found on the pretest, external focus group had significantly (p<.05) higher performance accuracy than the internal focus group on the transfer test. The finding of the study suggests that focusing on the movement effect rather than the movement itself during skill acquisition under psychological stress would help performers appropriately allocate information processing resources and thus enhance their skill learning. Keyword(s): coaching, performance, research