Self-efficacy assessment hinders improvement on a deliberate cricket bowling practice task
Self-related thoughts such as performance worries or attention to one’s own body movements during sport have been known to impact performance negatively. However, self-assessment is often encouraged during learning tasks, especially when being coached on sporting tasks. In this study we examined how attention directed towards an internal psychological aspect, self-efficacy, affected performance in a cricket bowling task. We hypothesised that cricketers who are asked to assess their own ability on a bowling task would show a deterioration in performance compared to control subjects who are asked to assess the ability of another. Participants were asked to rate their self- efficacy levels in the middle of a deliberate practice task. In the pre-test phase, participants attempted to bowl in a game-standard designated “good length” zone across twelve trials. Following this, experimental group members rated their own general and task-specific self-efficacy using Bandura’s self-efficacy questionnaire, while the control group rated someone else’s ability. They each then bowled for twelve more trials, and their performance was measured before and after the self-assessment based on the number of trials that were bowled within the standard “good length” zone. Paired t-tests showed that while the performance of the control group improved significantly from pre-test to post-test, t = 2.613, p = 0.008; the experimental group did not show a significant improvement, t = 1.156, p = 0.131. Results indicate that asking people to rate their confidence level may hinder their improvement on a deliberate practice task. This has implications for sport performance where athletes or coaches might be tempted to self-evaluate before performance, as well as for researchers who consider administering self-efficacy questionnaires prior to performance.