Background/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between specific/non-specific feedback on goal setting and performance in a longitudinal design.
Method: Participants (N = 122) were from undergraduate students enrolled in three activity classes who completed a pushup task. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of three groups: knowledge of results (KR), no knowledge of results (NKR), and a control group (C). Following three familiarization trials participants completed seven additional trials under different goal setting conditions. KR participants were assigned a goal based on the mean improvement in their familiarization scores and were provided with their previous pushup scores throughout. NKR participants were not provided with their pushup scores after each trial but were given the goal of completing as many pushups as possible in each subsequent session. C group participants were asked to ‘do their best'. They were not set goals and were not distracted from counting.
Analysis/Results: With respect to pushup performance, the KR group showed significant and consistent improvement in achievement after seven test sessions. However, the NKR group showed very little improvement over seven test sessions, and performance behavior was more similar to that of the C group than the behavior of KR group. The KR group also showed consistently near-perfect high positive correlation between the outcomes of consecutive sessions, whereas for the NKR and C groups that decreased as the sessions progressed.
Conclusions: Results are discussed in light of current research and future research directions are suggested.
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